yuniya edi kwon (CRF 2024) and Holland Andrews’ new experimental opera How does it feel to look at nothing will have its world premieres in Fall 2026 at FringeArts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) in Portland, Oregon, followed by a New York premiere mid-season at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) as part of the Next Wave Festival. A companion album will also be released through New Amsterdam Records alongside the premieres.
About the Opera
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.
While developing the work, Holland and yuniya (who are married) are simultaneously engaging with questions of queer parenthood, trans pregnancy, and contemporary life as trans artists of color. Over the course of the opera’s creation, Holland and yuniya will find themselves also navigating the real-life, emotionally rich, and spiritually complex socio-political terrain of queer-trans family building during a period of rising American fascism and political disintegration. While the opera will not be grounded in one specific time or place, it will necessarily be shaped by the parallel, real-life experiences of Holland and yuniya as they embark on this deeply personal journey.
In addition to being co-creators and composers, How does it feel to look at nothing will feature Holland and yuniya as soloists and multi-instrumentalists whose performance practices draw from diverse lineages, including Korean Shamanic Ritual, Channeled Singing, American Experimentalism, Contemporary Opera, Punk and Hardcore, and Japanese Butoh. Throughout the opera, Holland and yuniya will 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 that feels both familiar and unknown, able to hold their many shifting roles.
Creative Producer Roya Amirsoleymani and a team of exceptional, visionary artists will comprise the company, including Lester St. Louis (Sound), Maggie Heath (Lighting, Production), KC Englander (Scenic Design), Bonan Li (Costume Design), and Marie Lloyd Paspe (Movement Coach).
Photo by Lindsay Morris for The Watermill Center