Holland Andrews + yuniya edi kwon
(Brooklyn, NY)
How does it feel to look at nothing
World Premiere
Access Notes: This performance contains periodic loud volumes and a few instances of flickering lights, strobe effects, and the use of haze. Earplugs will be available for those who would like to use them.
DESCRIPTION
Using an improvised language of disintegration, How does it feel to look at nothing is an embodied pre-origin story of a Deity of Nothingness. An opera of the elemental, of pre-deities, and illusions of containment, this interdisciplinary performance emerges through a story of transitional states. Composer-performers, multi-instrumentalists, and vocalists Holland Andrews and yuniya edi kwon co-create this work of composition, improvisation, dance, and ritual. Grounded in Holland and yuniya’s shared spiritual lineages and lives as partners, the opera explores the forces and conditions that compel life’s emergence, and the spiritual act of meaning-making during epochs of decay.
Over the course of the opera’s creation, Holland and yuniya (who are married) are engaged with questions of queer parenthood, trans pregnancy, and contemporary life as trans artists of color. They are navigating the real-life, emotionally rich, and spiritually complex socio-political terrain of queer-trans family building during a period of rising American fascism, political disintegration, and global anti-trans violence.
To reflect and embody the queer possibilities that emerge, even within overwhelming cycles of decay, the artists have developed an improvised practice called Language Disintegration. This process is the lens through which all elements of the work—vocal performance, movement, sonic textures, composition, and ritual technologies—are transformed.
In addition to being co-creators and composers, the opera features Holland and yuniya as soloists and multi-instrumentalists whose performance practices draw from diverse lineages, including American Experimentalism, Korean Shamanic Ritual, Channeled Singing, Punk and Hardcore, and Contemporary Opera. Throughout the opera, Holland and yuniya embody fluid and entangled identities: elemental force, angel witness, sounding body, deity, child, parent, and memory. Through an iterative and syncretic practice, they create an improvisational, deconstructed language both familiar and unknown, able to hold their many shifting roles.
Creative Production: Roya Amirsoleymani
Sound Design: Lester St. Louis
Lighting Design & Production Management: Maggie Heath
Scenic Design: KC Englander
Stage Management: orion
Costume Design: Bonan Li
Movement Coach: Marie Lloyd Paspe
How does it feel to look at nothing premieres in Fall 2026 before touring nationally and internationally.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Holland Andrews (they/them) is a vocalist, composer, clarinetist, and performance artist whose work focuses on the abstraction of operatic and extended-technique voice to build soundscapes encompassing both catharsis and dissonance. Frequently highlighting themes surrounding vulnerability and healing, they create a realm of live performance that is boundlessly present. They have been commissioned by REDCAT, ISSUE Project Room, and the 2024 Whitney Biennial, where they created two sound installations and the performance work Speaker. Notable musical collaborations include Son Lux, Nils Frahm, JJJJJerome Ellis, Christina Vantzou, William Brittelle, Peter Broderick, Darian Donovan Thomas, and Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste. Their work is presented nationally and internationally, collaborating with artists such as Bill T. Jones, Sonya Tayeh, Dorothée Munyaneza, Otobong Nkanga, Jenn Freeman, NARCISSISTER, Demian DinéYazhi, Oliver Beer, and Will Rawls. Andrews is a Guggenheim Fellow, Creative Capital Awardee, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Awardee, and United States Artists Fellow.
yuniya edi kwon (she/her) is a violinist, vocalist, poet, and interdisciplinary performance-maker based in Brooklyn, NY. Her practice connects composition, improvisation, movement, and ceremony to explore transformation and transgression, ritual practice as a tool to queer space and lineage, and the use of mythology to connect, obscure, and reveal. Her work has been presented throughout the US and Europe, including Performa Biennial, Dia Art Foundation, New York Live Arts, Roulette Intermedium, Under The Radar Festival, LA Phil, On The Boards, and Monheim Triennale. As a committed collaborator, she has co-created with The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Senga Nengudi, Tomeka Reid, Degenerate Art Ensemble, Roscoe Mitchell, Moor Mother, Du Yun, Shahzad Ismaily, and International Contemporary Ensemble. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, Creative Capital Awardee, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Awardee, Arts Fellow at Princeton University, Bessie Award Winner, Civitella Ranieri Fellow, and United States Artists Fellow.
SUPPORT
How does it feel to look at nothing is supported by Creative Capital. It is made possible by lead commissioner John C. Robinson, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, The Watermill Center’s Nina von Maltzahn Fellowship, Sweat Variant’s Artists Supporting Artists Program, Chiwoniso Kaitano & Andy Sabl, and the generosity of individual donors in Portland and New York. Developmental and residency support has been provided by Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), The Watermill Center, Guild Hall's William P. Rayner Artist-in-Residency, Performance Space New York, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, National Sawdust, Teatro Municipal do Porto, Avaloch Farm Music Institute, and Shadowcliff Artist Residency.