PASSAGERS / The 7 Fingers

Passagers is a poetic and physically explosive production by world-renowned Canadian circus collective The 7 Fingers. Set aboard a moving train, the show explores the liminal space between departure and arrival — a place where stories, memories, and strangers briefly converge. As performers drift in and out of personal reveries, everyday motions transform into gravity-defying feats of strength, grace, and vulnerability. Blending circus arts, music, dance, and fleeting fragments of dialogue, Passagers captures the emotional texture of travel — its nostalgia, possibility, and the profound human connections found along the way.

As video designer for Passagers, Johnny Ranger crafted multi screens projections that serve as both scenery and emotional extension, seamlessly weaving the train’s interior and environments with the inner landscapes of its passengers. His work balances cinematic precision with dreamlike fluidity, enhancing the show's rhythm and theatricality without overpowering its intimacy. Using movement, light, and layered cinematic imagery, Johnny created a visual world that shifts with the characters’ moods — at times vast and borderless, at others shadowy and internal. His videography became a vital narrative device, amplifying the intensity and introspective beauty of the performance while keeping it grounded in the real, shared moment between audience and performer.

Touring show worldwide

Video projections / A mindroots studio

Johnny Ranger’s role:

-Directing shoots -Directing cinematographers -Directing a team of motion designers. -Video Editing & compositing -Co-directing integration on site with Olivier goulet, Etienne Cantin & 4U2C team.

Full Credits & review below

  • projection content

  • projection content

  • An image of the Cultural Center.

    Live on stage

  • Live on stage

  • Live on stage

  • Live on stage

  • Live on stage

    Live on stage

  • An image of the Cultural Center.

    Live on stage

  • Live on stage

  • Live on stage

  • Live on stage

“Selected excerpts from review about projections:

Passengers, elevates the genre from mere circus performance to genuine art.
With Passengers, The 7 Fingers has truly put the ‘art’ in circus arts. See it.”
The theater mirror, Boston

And, again, the production values, under the direction of the company’s co-artistic director Shana Carroll, credited with the original idea for the piece as well as the choreography, are what lift it up to another dimension. That includes the music of composer Colin Gagne and the high-definition projections of video designer Johnny Ranger, an impressive backdrop to the proceedings.
On Boston Stage

Carroll hasn’t written artificial characters for these performers. Instead she has played upon the performers individual skills to create a mini backstory for each artist and they perform under their own given names. The company members, who share the warm, physical intimacy of close colleagues, hail from Canada, the U.K., Finland, Brazil, Argentina, Guatemala and the U.S.

The production is greatly enhanced by the seamless videography of Johnny Ranger, original music by Raphael Cruz and shadowy lighting designed by Éric Champoux.
Stage and cinema

Les 7 doigts propels us through space and time alongside eight travelers. They engage in conversations—among other things, about the speed of light and the dilation of time, nothing less—while revealing their inner states or fragments of their personal histories, often in an introspective mode. The highly accomplished projections that punctuate the performance resonate with the actions, emotions, and sensations of its atmospheric and autofictional narrative.
-Francoise Boudreault, Revue Jeu

 A production by The 7 Fingers
Written, Directed and Choreographed by Shana Carroll

Artists on stage Victor Crépin, Eduardo De Azevedo Grillo, Isabelle Diaz, Marie-Christine Fournier, Téo Le Baut, Amanda Orozco, Michael Patterson, Basil Pucek, Santiago Rivera and Méliejade Tremblay-Bouchard

Composer/ Musical Direction Colin Gagné
Lyrics Colin Gagné and Shana Carroll
Scenic Design Ana Cappelluto
Costume Design Camille Thibault-Bédard
Lighting Design Eric Champoux
Projection Design Johnny Ranger
Sound Design Colin Gagné with Jerome Guilleaume
Arrangements Colin Gagné in collaboration with Jean-Sébastien Leblanc (arrangements Train is Coming and Saint Louis Blues), Boogát (lyrics La Hora de la Hora), Jérôme Guilleaume (arrangements La Hora de la Hora)

Einstein's Train text written by Conor Wild

Voice and instruments: Boogát, Mykalle Bielinski, , Alexandre Désilets, Guido Del Fabbro, Jérôme Dupuis-Cloutier, Colin Gagné, Jonathan Gagné, Gabriel Godbout-Castonguay, Dominiq Hamel, Sheila Hannigan, Olivier Hébert, Frannie Holder, Jean-Sébastien Leblanc, Jeffrey Moseley,  Mathieu Roberge, Guillaume St. Laurent

Production Director (creation) Sabrina Gilbert
Technical Director (creation) Simon Lachance
Associate Director (creation) Isabelle Chassé
Production Stage Manager Charlotte Legault
Head Coach Francisco Cruz

Touring team
Resident director, Tour Manager Christelle Viputier
Technical Director Sandy Dionne
Light Operator Lorianne Foisy
Audio and Video Operator Jean-Félix Des Rochers Lamarche
Rigger Max Jouanneau

This show was created in collaboration with the original cast Sereno Aguilar Izzo, Louis Joyal, Maude Parent, Samuel Renaud, Sabine Van Rensburg, Brin Schoellkopf, Freyja Wild and Conor Wild

Passengers is dedicated to the memory of Raphael Cruz