This work explores the relationship one may experience with grief. It looks at the ways we find ourselves with a loss so great we are afraid to grieve for it, because we are afraid to let go. We grieve memories, time, things, and people, constantly. This poem is a memo on how to survive her, grief, that in her arrival we must allow her to visit us, that is the only way to get through it.
The project is part of the subtheme Stories of Grieving in Society.
Author
Grace Storm Barnes
Grace graduated BADA(hons) with majors in Dance Theatre composition and choreography in 2016. She then completed my MA in Applied Theatre (Cum Laude) with a focus on performance as research in 2021.
A performer, choreographer, author, spoken word artist, facilitator, lecturer and teacher.
She is an artist at heart with a love for teaching.
She has choreographed various works and productions between 2016-2022, such as "Regression" which debuted at Dance Umbrella 2017, "Slip", performed at the Baxter Dance Festival as well as the JoYA festival in 2016-2017, and "Breathe" which was performed at the Sibikwa Arts Centre, “Wait/Weight”, performed at The Market Theatre in 2023 and more recently “Grieve, that is how you survive”, a two-hander developed from her poetry collection which debuted at the National Arts Festival in July 2024 amongst many others.
She started writing at the age of 13 and has written and self-published a collection of 3 anthologies on love, loss, and grief, recently launching her 2nd Edition collection in March 2024.
In October 2022, Grace represented South Africa at the Requiem for Justice Festival in Mexico City, an international Rally of artists, writers and thinkers from over 15 countries to manifest the role that art plays to protest against injustice.
She continues to create and perform her works, creating new explorative ways of merging her skills and art forms in various ways. Her recent projects focuses on grief studies and finding ways in which to articulate the process of grief in order to find joy and healing through the process of loss.
