Fissures
(lost and found)
Winthrop University | 2021
Conceived and created by Steve Epp, Cory Hinkle, Dominic Orlando, Dominique Serrand, Deborah Stein, Victoria Stewart
Fissures (lost and found) is a look into the mind and the memory as they play together with truth and imagination. With the use of comedy, movement and poetics, an ensemble of actors explore a myriad of memories as they begin to unravel.
This show asks who are you? Where have you been? What do you remember? Are you sure?
Promotional video for Fissures (lost and found)
"Chloe Wright is the most patient, thoughtful and strong director that I've worked with. She is caring of her cast and crew, but also the most clear visionary I've met... Chloe Wright is definitely the right one to be part of any company due to her precision and dedication to her work."
Kalaylah Chisolm, Dramatug for Fissures (lost and found)
Finding the story together
This show was like a puzzle that the audience had to piece together, so we helped to continue the story and fill in more of the details through choreographed "transitions" between the scenes.
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All of these moments took place in the main character Dominique's mind as he watches his memories unravel as an effect of his dementia and tries to piece them all back together with the audience.
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This is an example of the "glitches" that I incorporated into the movement, illustrating the breaks and empty places in his memory.
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As a director, I like to incorporate music and movement into my work to tell more of the story. With movement in shows like this, I make choreography (and often times the music as well) based on the story. I then come into rehearsals with this movement and have the cast help me put it all together, combining my vision with their instincts.
The Half-Life Memory
"Every time you remember something, you only remember half of what you remembered the last time you remembered it. So every time you remember something, you're also forgetting it. It gets farther away."
Emily, Fissures (lost and found) p.14
This show dives into the mind of a man that you don't get to hear a word from until the very end of the show. Instead, an ensemble of four actors and movers become representations of him and his loved ones, reenacting memories that become more jumbled as the show goes on and he falls even more to the power of his dementia.
The studio theater space at Winthrop University was completely transformed for this production.
A steel sculpture broke through the back wall, creating the beginning of our symbolic brain.
The entire playing space in the black box was painted white and surrounded in white string above the heads of audiences and actors alike. Tied to these strings were pictures, props and memories that audience members were encouraged to write and tie up themselves prior to the beginning of the show.
This was the first step to break the barrier between the audience and actors and to really involve each and every person in our storytelling.
The whole thing wouldn't even fit in one picture, so check out more of the space in our Virtual Production Trailer.
