Parmi les Éclats is an autobiographical piece of theatre about a woman shattered by the loss of love. It is based on Brigitte Haentjens’ poetic story “d’éclats de peines,” with poetry by Robert Dickson and Miriam Cusson. Produced by the Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario in Sudbury, the development of the piece was experimental, with the director, designers and players inspiring and shaping it over the course of a year and a half in a multidisciplinary collaboration. In her role as projected lighting designer, Chaddah imaged the shattered essence of Cusson’s identity using a scanning electron microscope that is able to probe materials with extremely high magnification, depth and dimension. The imaged materials were chosen by Cusson as symbolic representations of facets of her identity. She collected a fragment of the mountain that was her childhood refuge, a piece of slag from the omnipresent mining industry in Sudbury, a twig of gnarled and hardy black spruce, a broken baby tooth, a piece of skin, hair, and fingernail. The resulting scanning electron images were projected onto large 3 dimensional set pieces to create the psychic space represented onstage.

Director and Original ConceptMiriam Cusson, FeaturingFrance Huot, Manon St-Jules, Stephanie Kym Tougas and Miriam Cusson. Assistant Director and ManagementSophie Duhcarme, Projected Imagery and Animation DesignRadha Chaddah, Soundscape Daniel Bedard, Set DesignPatrick Harrop, Lighting DesignIvan Pitre, Video ProgrammingRyan Webber. Produced bythe Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario.