This regional theatre project, produced by the Country Arts SA Local Stages Initiative, has been one of my favourite projects of all time. Extremely challenging (subject matter and technically), its a progressive theatre project that takes the audience on a journey through the mental landscape of a Ado, troubled young man and his community dealing with their loss of him.
Each site featured layers of live performance, visual art and installation, interactive projection and animation.
The show was presented three times over a five year period, in Goolwa, Mount Gambier and Bathurst.
The site “Memory Room” was a beautiful and mesmerising immersive space, which layers the haunting glitch tracks of DJ Tr!p combined with footage that I worked on with the actors and local film makers in each place.
As the audience pass through the room they experience Ado’s final moments, lingering thoughts of love and despair communicated through visual vignettes of family gatherings and fights, as they continue on through remnants of a wake for Ado. It was always very moving presenting this work.
As a collaborative project it was daunting with many collaborating directors and ‘cooks’ but we worked it out with a lot of trust and calm good communication. On reflection, it was one of the best regional performance projects I have worked on.