Sasha Krohn is an aerial acrobat, dancer, artist and musician, and has travelled the world creating and sharing art with others. This year, he is bringing The Weight of Shadow to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – a visually beautifully deeply personal look into the mind of a person suffering with mental illnesses. Based on his fiancée Cíana’s own real-life struggles, Sasha uses dance, mime and aerial acrobatics to show the audience the reality of her world.
Tell us more about The Weight of Shadow
The Weight of Shadow is a physical theatre show combining dance, mime, aerial acrobatics, and is an insight into a day of somebody struggling with mental health issues. This show was inspired by my fiancée Cíana Fitzgerald and her long-standing issues with PTSD, BPD and clinical depression.
Often we would come across people who wouldn’t quite understand what it truly means to be living life with a broken soul. It would be downplayed, not only by people, but even by some of her therapists. She was greeted with clever “advice” such as “maybe you just need to find something stimulating to do”. Saying that to a filmmaker and fine arts painter is like telling a sick postman that he should go out for walks more.
Seeing Cíana having to navigate life with her head completely pre-occupied and torn between (self-directed) anger, sadness, frustration, insomnia was heart-breaking to watch. Even more so when you then see how, even in 2024, quite a few people still have a stigmatised view of it and see it as “having a bad day”. All of that moved me to create a show, that physically explains the struggle, the heaviness that a person with mental health issues, can experience in everyday situations and how it truly translates physically. That’s why I chose not to use words, and only use my body to tell the story.
You’ve had an illustrious career so far spanning 14 years, what have been some highlights?
There’s a few I love thinking about. I spent four months out in Morocco as part of a self-directed artist residency and spent a lot of time travelling around the place and collaborating with people from all walks of life. The idea was to get a bunch of people from different regions, like Agadir, Essaouira, Marrakesh that have never met each other and perform live and unrehearsed at the Jemaa El-Fnaa in Marrakesh. I got three musicians and myself to perform in the middle of the square as part of local festivities, and we improvised every single bit – the musicians started playing among each other until they found a tune, that they all could have a wee jam too. I used the music to move (floor and aerial acrobatics) to. Halfway through we reversed it, meaning the musicians had to follow my movement and come up with music. Absolutely gas. We had hundreds of people gathering around and humming along, celebrating and at the end, all of them dancing with us.
Other things include a performance for the renowned video-and photographer Nick Knight, who invited me to perform one of my solo pieces at his exhibition ‘A Beautiful Darkness’ over the course of four days that then later on led to shooting an advert for Beats by Dre headphones together. Also, my very small moment in the third season of Black Mirror. Like, the role isn’t worth mentioning, but being on the set and getting to know Charlie Brooker himself was fantastic.
You’ve performed in Russia, Japan and across Europe, and now, Edinburgh Scotland! Where has been your favourite place to perform?
I think the very first one that will always come to mind first is Iceland. Cíana and I shot a film out in the incredible surroundings that Iceland has to offer. It was equally inspiring and exhausting due to the severe weather change. Being outside in -10 degrees Celsius and performing in sandstorms, glaciers, snowy mountains and volcanic eruption sites in nothing but a thin costume was madness but it was a whole different level of immersion. The character we created for this film had to fully be part of the surroundings, fully unfazed by the weather. It turned out to be one of the most inspiring performance moments for me.
Other things that I love remembering were performances in Russia and Latvia. The people there have an appreciation for live performance, that is almost incomparable. People as young as 14, 15, 16 would be hanging out in front of the theatres, having a wee drink and all. And you’d look at them and just think it’s their local spot before they are heading out into town for a few. Turns out, it was their spot to have a few before going in and see the show! The theatres there were filled with people of all ages, all with the same appreciation and admiration for live-performance and entertainment. After the show, you’d be surrounded by people asking questions, handing you gifts as a token of appreciation, throwing their babies at you to take a picture with them… it was otherworldly.
How did you decide on the title of the show?
The title of the show came about simply because I wondered if shadow has a mass, a weight. That might sound stupid, but I just had this moment, staring at a shadow and asking myself if there is any weight to it. Density of atoms and weight and if there is a way to measure it. So I started researching, and as it turns out, people are completely split minded about it all. Some scientists believe that if we had a scale being able to weigh shadow, we would actually see a slight increase of density, and therefore weight. Other people say, it has no mass therefore no weight.
That moment was pretty much the moment I decided on the title. It is, in my opinion, a great description for mental health issues. You can feel the weight of your (figurative) shadow, you know its heavier, but then there are others who don’t understand, who don’t feel the weight of their (figurative) shadow and therefore cannot quite understand, how that weight drags you down, slows you down, makes you anxious.
It’s something that we wouldn’t pay attention to because we all have a shadow. But for some that “shadow” is the reason they want to hide. It’s a weight, a burden rather than something you can just ignore.
The younger generation are becoming much better at speaking about mental health struggles, and it appears there is less of a stigma than there was years ago. What are your thoughts on that and what message do you have for Gen Z? Would you like them to come and see the show?
It’s absolutely deadly that the younger generations are speaking up about it, showing how many people are truly suffering. That it is not a “bad day”, that it is not a rarity, and that a lot of people are struggling one way or another. There is an open conversation about it, an inclusion that we previously never had.
On the other side, there is also a side-wind of glorification, that we need to be careful with. Social media presence has made it easy for people to jump on a band wagon and give advice and treatment options such as ‘sing your name in into a glass of water, knit a yoghurt and inhale a banana, and you will be fine ‘. It diminishes the severity of mental issues at times. I am not saying that that’s always the case, but it’s out there and we should be careful to not glorify it and make a fashion trend out of somebody else’s struggles.
But again, the new generations are a lot more clued up, switched on and listen to another. They understand the importance of openness and vulnerability!
The Weight of Shadow will be performed at 12:15 at Assembly Checkpoint from 1st – 25th August (Not 7th, 22nd or 23rd)
Booking Link: https://assemblyfestival.com/whats-on/628-the-weight-of-shadow