MEMENTO MORI: A Site-Responsive Performance Journey of Remembrance, Grief and Resolution
by the Geraldine Pilgrim Performance Company
In Summer 2024, Geraldine Pilgrim Performance Ltd was awarded an Arts Council Research & Development Grant in partnership with Highgate Cemetery for Memento Mori, a site-specific performance integrating visual/performance imagery with sung voice & live music, of remembrance/grief & resolution. Inspired by personal loss, the history of cemeteries & changing attitudes to death & grief, Memento Mori explores different cultures rituals of death, burial & grief; resonates within the common chord of loss & allows an audience space to contemplate their own personal resolution.
A 5-part requiem composed by Felix Cross M.B.E sung by recruited participatory choirs supported by a professional choir, provides the infrastructure to explore how psychologist Kubler Ross’s 5 stages of Grief: Denial/Anger/Bargaining/Depression & Acceptance can lead to resolution for both the grieving & the dying.
Inspired by 17th Century Memento Mori & Vanitas - still life allegorical artworks of symbolic objects designed to remind the viewer of their mortality- MM explores & contemporises this genre creating Vanitas installations relevant today. Memento Mori address’s themes common to all humankind & aims to resonate with everyone; people of all ages, cultures, of faiths or none (incl. atheists, humanists & agnostics) with the opportunity that it will provide for all those who mourn those they have lost especially post covid.
A weekend workshop was held in October 2024 with Sharings of the ideas so far to invited audiences. The evaluation & positive feedback from these Sharings allow us to now reimagine Memento Mori for other UK and European Cemeteries maintaining the original infrastructure from the Highgate R&D but adapted, enhanced upscaled or down scaled specifically for the architecture history and atmosphere of each cemetery in which it takes place. We plan to tour Memento Mori in 2028, watch this space.
"I hope Memento Mori can be seen and lived by as many people as possible. It is so incredibly relevant, and the tone is for everyone. In my experience, the combination of performance and music is particularly moving when we think about the loved ones we have lost, it connects us to the parts of our brain that can then release some of the grief and accept the pain in a new way.”
Participant feedback after the Memento Mori Sharing.
“I loved it. The pacing, the movement and timing of the piece, the beauty of the extraordinary setting, the gorgeous music and singing, the involvement, discipline and unity of all the performers and participants and their engagement in something which had great integrity in style and content. Wonderful humane piece of work. It stayed with me a long time.”
Audience Feedback after the Memento Mori Sharing.
by the Geraldine Pilgrim Performance Company
In Summer 2024, Geraldine Pilgrim Performance Ltd was awarded an Arts Council Research & Development Grant in partnership with Highgate Cemetery for Memento Mori, a site-specific performance integrating visual/performance imagery with sung voice & live music, of remembrance/grief & resolution. Inspired by personal loss, the history of cemeteries & changing attitudes to death & grief, Memento Mori explores different cultures rituals of death, burial & grief; resonates within the common chord of loss & allows an audience space to contemplate their own personal resolution.
A 5-part requiem composed by Felix Cross M.B.E sung by recruited participatory choirs supported by a professional choir, provides the infrastructure to explore how psychologist Kubler Ross’s 5 stages of Grief: Denial/Anger/Bargaining/Depression & Acceptance can lead to resolution for both the grieving & the dying.
Inspired by 17th Century Memento Mori & Vanitas - still life allegorical artworks of symbolic objects designed to remind the viewer of their mortality- MM explores & contemporises this genre creating Vanitas installations relevant today. Memento Mori address’s themes common to all humankind & aims to resonate with everyone; people of all ages, cultures, of faiths or none (incl. atheists, humanists & agnostics) with the opportunity that it will provide for all those who mourn those they have lost especially post covid.
A weekend workshop was held in October 2024 with Sharings of the ideas so far to invited audiences. The evaluation & positive feedback from these Sharings allow us to now reimagine Memento Mori for other UK and European Cemeteries maintaining the original infrastructure from the Highgate R&D but adapted, enhanced upscaled or down scaled specifically for the architecture history and atmosphere of each cemetery in which it takes place. We plan to tour Memento Mori in 2028, watch this space.
"I hope Memento Mori can be seen and lived by as many people as possible. It is so incredibly relevant, and the tone is for everyone. In my experience, the combination of performance and music is particularly moving when we think about the loved ones we have lost, it connects us to the parts of our brain that can then release some of the grief and accept the pain in a new way.”
Participant feedback after the Memento Mori Sharing.
“I loved it. The pacing, the movement and timing of the piece, the beauty of the extraordinary setting, the gorgeous music and singing, the involvement, discipline and unity of all the performers and participants and their engagement in something which had great integrity in style and content. Wonderful humane piece of work. It stayed with me a long time.”
Audience Feedback after the Memento Mori Sharing.
Photos: Robin Savage
Pieter Claes: Vanitas with Violin and Glass Ball