(in)VISIBLE 3.12, created by Yoon Bae
Together we made (in)VISIBLE 3.12, six feet apart.
(in)VISIBLE 3.12, created by Yoon Bae (scenographer & educator), expresses our experience and emotion during the pandemic. It is 3 minutes and 12 seconds long to commemorate the 200th day since the theatres in the U.K. and the U.S. were closed, on March 12th.
VIEW IT HERE
“There is no such thing as an empty space, or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.”
(Silence: Lectures and Writings by John Cage)
Back in the spring, when Yoon Bae as set designer, was opening House of Joy, a new play, written by Madhuri Shekar (Lanford Wilson Award & Amazon movie, Evil Eye’s) at San Diego Repertory Theatre, California, the World Health Organization declared coronavirus a pandemic. Before there was time to enjoy the success of opening the show, the show closed. Instead of reviews, Yoon received an urgent email from the producers, a notification of temporary suspension with immediate effect. After months of design work, weeks of construction and painting, rehearsals and collaboration, in one performance, the production had abruptly shut. On the same day, Broadway theatres and other live events in the U.K. and the U.S. also closed. The title (in)VISIBLE 3.12 reflects and explores what happened to the ‘Space’ in theatre, and our lives.
Yoon’s work begins by asking about our perception of performance. Of the physical and mental distances between humans and the connection, we have with each other. It asks how isolation, and missing physical touch, creates a sense of vulnerability.
Photo courtesy University of Kentucky Photography
During the rehearsal and filming, student performers and creatives mutually shared the emotional experiences of being on stage again, making collaborative work for the first time since the lockdown began.
When we have no live audience
When we have no rehearsal
When we have no productions
When we cannot make
Where do we put our creative energy?
Photo courtesy University of Kentucky Photography
(in)VISIBLE 3.12 is a designer’s response to the current ‘Empty Space’ of theatre.
It is a celebration of human presence
It is about bodies in space
It explores the rawest human emotions
It is about connection through isolation
It is about multi-cultures and inclusion
It is about the present
It is a celebration of life.
Twenty-four students University of Kentucky were involved in making (in)VISIBLE 3.12.
Photo courtesy University of Kentucky Photography
(in)VISIBLE 3.12 is an experimental project
(in)VISIBLE 3.12 is not traditional theatre, but it happens in a theatre
(in)VISIBLE 3.12 is making a space VISIBLE
(in)VISIBLE 3.12 is about hope, resilience, and our human need for contact
(in)VISIBLE 3.12 is about our human need to express our experience as a community
(in)VISIBLE 3.12 is about people.
“We can take any empty space and call it a bare stage.
A person walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching,
and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.”
(borrowed from Peter Brook’s the Empty Space)
Yoon Bae
2020
Biography
Yoon Bae: Concept/Direction/Design/co-Edit
Yoon designed the sets for House of Joy, and Oedipus El Rey at San Diego Repertory Theatre. She is a Korean, award-winning set and costume designer working internationally, including London’s West End, Norway, South Korea, Japan, and the USA. Highlights: Don Giovanni (Welsh National Opera), Candide (Tokyo), Evita, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Disconnect (Winner Bay Area Theatre Critics Award for best set design, USA), Once musical & Once On This Island (Pioneer Theatre Company, USA), The Wolves (Actors Theatre of Louisville, USA), The Great Gatsby, The Importance of Being Earnest, Emma, The Sunshine Boys (Arizona Theatre Company, USA). In London’s West End: Gone with the Wind, Birdsong, Skellig, Equus. Edinburgh International Festival: Three Thousand Troubled Threads, The Magic Flute, Anything Goes, As You Like It, Private Lives, The Full Monty, and Closer. She is an Assistant Professor of Scenic Design at the University of Kentucky and a member of USA 829. www.yoonbae.com
PORNCHANOK [NOK] KANCHANABANCA: Composer
PORNCHANOK [NOK] KANCHANABANCA is a Thai artist, sound designer, musician and composer. Nok has worked with theatre companies across the United States including Lincoln Center, Huntington Theatre Company, OSF, Steppenwolf, McCarter Theater, Rattlestick, Geva Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse and Milwaukee Repertory Theater, among many others. She has also collaborated with performing groups and theatre companies in Thailand since 2008. Nok graduated from the Yale School of Drama and is a member of the TSDCA, USA Local 829. www.wishnok-music.com
