A judging panel of entertainment professionals shortlisted Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew's design for Sweet Land for the Opera Award in the Theatre category in Live Design's 2020 Design Achievement Awards. Vote for the most outstanding projects now!
Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew's inventive exploration of conventional and non-conventional site-specific lighting design connected the audience to the complex performance and narrative experience of Sweet Land, which explored myths of American identity by offering erased or rewritten narratives of the people and land. Held at different locations across Los Angeles State Historic Park, the opera began at the outdoor "Theatre" where lighting became an idea of illuminating bodies in conversation with projection to challenge spectatorship. In another location, "Feast," a reimagining of Thanksgiving to examine cultural exchange, featured 800 battery-operated flickering LED candles to give a naturalistic, warm, and inviting atmosphere. At "Train," representing the building of the railroad and the notion of progress, the lighting was harsh, cold, and aggressive.
“I thought this masterful and immersive feat of creativity exquisitely reflected, perhaps unintentionally, the stresses and strains of the creative moment. I found this work to be mesmerizing, uncompromising and thrilling throughout. It is hard to probe the intersection of the socially mundane and the fantastical, but this design somehow managed to do that. Stunning, really.” — Chris Jones, Theatre Critic, Chicago Tribune and a Design Achievement Awards judge
- Lighting: Chauvet Professional and 4Wall
Check out the Theatre shortlist, Live for Broadcast shortlist and Concert Touring & Events shortlist, and vote for the most outstanding projects now! Voting ends October 22.
Vote here!