Performed at Rising Artists Works - Shanghai International Arts Festival
Composter Song Yang's music theater rendition of "The Hunger Artist" a text by Franz Kafka dealt with the subject of artistry from the artist's perspective: making art a life's work.
The piece was also performed at KunstStation Köln.
My Role: Media artist (conception, illustration, live performance, projection design)
Composer: Song Yang
Musicians: Handwerk
Actor: Hendrik Hendrik Vogt
Prop design: Angelia Knyazeva.
Project time: 4 Months
Overview
I was approached by Composer Song Yang to develop and implement a visual style in the form of projected media, as well as to perform the media live. The story of Kafka was interpreted by Song Yang and performed by Handwerk. We performed at the Rising Artists Works in Shanghai, China and Kunststation in Cologne, Germany.
Challenges
Compared to traditional musical theatre and opera, new contemporary music theatre lays more emphasis on the matching between sound and performance on stage. It is a very different style of music so it took me a while to get a feel for the style and to create a fitting visual concept.
Solution
As a reference to the past, I decided to use the visual style of lithography. This contains very contrasting colors and harsh lines. I was inspired by very abstract artworks.
Process
