Mental health awareness highlighted through experiential play
MENTAL health awareness plays a vital role most specially at times when emotionally vulnerable persons are resistant to seek assistance even from family, close friends, and relatives. Today, one of the ways to extend help to those who struggle is to take a peek into their minds and understand their deepest thoughts.
The De La Salle- College of Saint Benilde ( DLS- CSB) Arts Management Batch 114 students, together with the Benilde Arts and Culture Cluster, and Theater. Applied. Experiential. Immersive Theater ( TAXI Theater), unraveled at the School of Design and Arts (SDA) Theater, the inner workings of depression through a multi- sensorial journey entitled “‘Musta,” a contraction of the Filipino word kumusta ( how are you), often used as a casual greeting in daily social encounters.
Designed and directed by DLS-CSB Theater Arts and Arts Management professor Eric Villanueva Dela Cruz, and the founder and creative navigator of TAXI Theater, the production questioned the types of relationships individuals form not only with others but also with oneself.
The experiential play allowed the audience to follow Shiloh, a teenager suffering from depression, as she led them through various immersive spaces, interactive installations, and sensorial stimulations crafted to reveal her feelings, beliefs, matched with struggles. Each environment was designed to push the audience to confront their ideas on the mental illnesses and how to better understand it.
‘Musta drew inspiration from various sources including shared real-life experiences confronting depression.
The scripts, including the production, underwent consultations with mental health experts from the Philippine Mental Health Association, Inc. and the Natasha Goulbourn Foundation.
The immersive journey was made possible through the collaborative effort, artworks, and installations of the institutions’ art management students, Benildean faculty, and alumni.