Journey Through Grief and Healing
Theatrical projections for Journey Through Grief and Healing, a play in the Hart House Drama Festival 2024.
Journey Through Grief and Healing was written by Maryuri Marin, directed by Ethan Persyko, and featured original video art and live projections by Sarah Imrisek.
It tells Maryuri's personal story of grieving the loss of her parents, in a postdramatic style that brings the audience directly into the experience, using lighting, music, projections and a dance ensemble to animate Yuri's emotional responses and to represent the spirits that can both haunt us and bring us strength... ultimately coming to take on more concrete roles as friends and family by the end.
The projections incorporated drawings by Gabriela Palomo, and were conceived in collaboration with Danielle Hyde and Evander Dewar to achieve Ethan Persyko's vision for the show.
Most of the video elements were composed in AfterEffects in small segments that were cued live to sync with the action on stage. The cyclone sequence was coded in hydra and generated live during the performance to allow it to change direction and speed in time with the speech and musical changes.
Recordings of the actual performance were not permitted by festival organizers, and so I regret that I can only show you my visual contribution, which lacks the added emotional impact of the voices and the beautiful original musical score. Several people told me that they were particularly affected by the sequence shown here on the left in which the screen on which Yuri's fragmented journalling text is being typed turns red and her words descend into chaos as she is overtaken by guilt and sorrow. One person said he got chills.
The reveal of the golden sky at the end of the play is a slow growth from a ragged sliver of light that gradually expands over eight minutes during the final sequence as ensemble members emerge from their reflective positions to join hands at the front of the stage.
It was a joy to collaborate with this diverse and creative cast and crew to create visual elements that contributed to building the otherworldly atmosphere of internal exploration, and added poignancy to key moments of the show without distracting from the spectacular performances of the actors.
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