SUNKEN CATHEDRALSUNKEN CATHEDRAL

Korean-American composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Bora Yoon is an interdisciplinary artist who conjures audiovisual soundscapes using digital devices, voice and found objects and instruments from a variety of cultures and historical centuries – to formulate an audiovisual storytelling through music, movement and sound.

Featured on the front-page of the Wall Street Journal and in the National Endowment for the Arts podcast for her musical innovations, Yoon’s music has been presented at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Singapore Arts Festival, the Nam Jun Paik Art Center (South Korea), the TED stage, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Banff Centre for Art and Creativity, MADE Festival (Sweden), Festival of World Cultures (Poland), Walker Art Center, Broad Museum (LA), Park Avenue Armory, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and universities worldwide.

From full symphonic and choral works, to performing solo on the TED stage as a vocalist/multi-instrumentalist – Yoon creates wide-ranging works of music for dance, theater, film, multimedia performance, site-specific works with architecture, and new media. Yoon’s work resonates with a wide and diverse range of genres, communities, industries, and collaborators including So Percussion, King Britt, Alarm Will Sound, Samsung Telecommunications America, Samsung Anycall (Korea), DJ Spooky, indie-guitarist Kaki King, Harlem-born poet Sekou Sundiata (The 51st (dream) state), Iceland-based electronic producer Ben Frost, French-Canadian director/choreographer Noémie Lafrance, Chinese choreographer Yin Mei Dance, SYMPHO directed by Paul Haas, Bang On A Can, International Contemporary Ensemble, live graphics artist Joshue Ott, wax phonograph artist Aleks Kolkowski, visual artist Ann Hamilton, kinetic sculptor U-Ram Choe, filmmakers H. Paul Moon (Zen Violence Films) and Adam Larsen, Ellen Fullman (creator of the Long String Instrument), and NPR / WNYC's Jad Abumrad (Radiolab).

Yoon composed the original score to Haruki Murakami’s "Wind Up Bird Chronicle" (Edinburgh International Festival, Singapore Arts Festival; commissioned by Asia Society); created the music for podcast MIGRATION WATCH [Wire Magazine UK], and docufilm "Faces of Seoul" by Gina Kim. Yoon has composed new works for Sympho, Metropolis Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Sō Percussion, the NJ Symphony Orchestra, Musica Viva, Voices of Ascension Chorus & Orchestra, Young People’s Chorus of New York, Modern Medieval, and the SAYAKA Ladies Consort of Tokyo. Recordings are available through INNOVA Recordings, Journal of Popular Noise, MIT Press, (gr)Albums, and Naxos — with select scores available through Boosey & Hawkes.

As a composer/performer, she created and performed in 2-person opera Sunken Cathedral (produced by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE Art Center, PROTOTYPE Festival) with Korean traditional dance and drumming artist Vong Pak; and collaborates with data artist R. Luke DuBois (bitforms Gallery) in continually evolving explorations of technology and art. Forthcoming segments include new interactive gesture performance integrating Mi.Mu glove controllers, with gesture, voice, and hybrid new media performance.

Bora Yoon has been awarded a Music/Sound fellowship with the New York Foundation for the Arts, United Artists Initiative, Asian American Arts Alliance, a recording grant from the Sorel Organization for Women Composers, and most recently received a 2020 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, New Music USA project grant -- and been a resident artist at institutions including Park Avenue Armory, Ringling Museum, the Hermitage, HERE Arts / PROTOTYPE, LEMUR, and Harvestworks Digital Media, Virginia Tech, and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Classically trained and steeped in a first love of choral music, Yoon is fascinated by the intersection of space and sound, maps, human Venn diagrams, handsome sounding kitchenware, sonorities, and the pulleys and strings that hold everything together. In all endeavors, she seeks to foster innovation of form in the arts, and its larger resonance in society.

Recent projects include a new multimedia evening-length symphonic work PARHELION, solo evening-length work PHONO KINETIC for the high-density wavefield synthesis and kinetic performance feat. custom instrument design by Joshue Ott [superDraw] at EMPAC - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; developing Asian opera '아가씨' Handmaiden, featuring libretto by poet E.J. Koh [Pachinko, Magical Language of Others] supported by OPERA AMERICA, and multimedia installation / kinetic sculpture 'Cat's Cradle' for Ensemble Decipher made possible with support from the Barlow Endowment and the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University.

Glynis Rigsby is a director, educator, intimacy choreographer, and artist based in New York City. As a director, she has presented at PROTOYPE, The Opera Project, Yale Center for British Art, and HERE, among others. Her work spans new plays, classics, opera, musicals, new music, devised work, literary adaptation, film, and art installation. She holds an Advanced Plus Diploma from Theatrical Intimacy Education and an MFA in Directing from the Yale School of Drama.

Her collaboration with composer Bora Yoon on Sunken Cathedral was acclaimed as “Mesmerizing...unfolding sequence fascinating throughout” (NYTimes) and “consistently hypnotic, alluring” (Wall Street Journal). Her production of Louis Cancelmi’s The Handlers was cited as “A creepily compelling family saga” and “the best of the evening” (Time Out Magazine) and “Highbrow/Brilliant” on New York Magazine’s Approval Matrix. For later productions, “Glynis Rigsby directed the work with élan, creating gorgeous stage pictures with breathtaking simplicity and eliciting strong performances from each member of her cast.” (Off-Off Broadway Review) and “Hilarious and heartbreaking... “so f*ing felt it makes you tremble” (SF Weekly).

With Edmund Mooney, she created the installation Tales from the Infra Thin specifically for the exhibition Welcome To Wherever You Are at the Manly Gallery and Museum, Australia and is currently developing a performance work with Eric Stone titled The Wind on Our Skin. As an Associate Professor at The New School’s College of Performing Arts, her scholarship and practice centered around intimacy work in entertainment; a field she has engaged since her appointment of Chair of the Acting for Film degree program at NYFA New York and South Beach in 2014. She has led workshops on consent culture at The New School, Fordham College at Lincoln Center, Pace University, and Brooklyn College, LaGuardia Center for Performing Arts and spoke about generative structures for professional development to emerging artists at Amherst College. Her voice can be heard in Brendan Fernandes’ media work Foe, acquired by the National Gallery of Canada.

HaeJin Han, originally from South Korea, received her M.F.A in Design and Technical Theater from Brooklyn College. Since then, Han has worked as a Production Manager, Stage Manager and Lighting Designer. Han has worked with a vast range of professional companies and different choreographers such as Martha Graham Dance Company, Buglisi Dance Theatre, Elisa Monte Dance, Nimbus Dance, Lar Lubovitch, Hofesh Shechter, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Annie-B Parson, Bobbi Jene Smith, and Sonya Tayeh. She was an Assistant Production Manager in "Brigadoon" on Broadway, as well as an Assistant Technical Director for "Hero" at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater. Han has been a Stage Manager at multiple world renowned theaters such as New York City Center, The Joyce Theatre, John F. Kennedy Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Harvey Theater for "Sweet Science Suite", along with many other venues throughout the United States. Han's credits include Production Stage Managing abroad for The Paris Opera Palais Garnier (Paris, France), The Generalife Theatre (Granada, Spain), and Megaron the Athens Concert Hall (Athens, Greece). She also has been the Lighting Designer for Off-Broadway productions such as Window, Burq off, Sunken Cathedral and MoM a Rock Concert Musical. Currently, Han is working at Barnard University as the Production Director and Lighting Designer.

Born in Korea and raised in Hawai’i, Tom Lee is a director, designer and puppet artist. Mr. Lee began his career at La MaMa Experimental Theater in New York with the encouragement of Ellen Stewart and later, the St. Ann’s Warehouse Puppet Lab. His work often explores the synthesis of manipulated figures and objects using film techniques and animation. Tom Lee creates original puppet theater pieces, performs as a professional puppeteer, designs and fabricates puppets through Chicago Puppet Studio and serves to elevate puppetry through his teaching and mentorship.

Mr. Lee’s original puppet theater work includes Sounding the Resonant Path (La MaMa, Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, Pesta Boneka Festival Indonesia), Akutagawa (Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, US Tour), Shank’s Mare (Tours in US, Hawai’i, Japan and France) Kurokami (Asian Improv Arts Midwest), Hoplite Diary (St. Ann’s, La MaMa), Tomte (Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival), Ko’olau (La MaMa/Hawai’i tour), Eden (NY State Puppet Festival), Odysseus and Ajax (La MaMa), and The Great Zodiac Animal Race (Art Institute Chicago, Eighth Blackbird Studio, La MaMa, Detroit Institute of Arts).

Mr. Lee was a member of the original Broadway cast of War Horse (Tony Award) with puppetry by Handspring Puppet Company. In 2023, he designed puppetry for Mary Zimmerman’s production of Florencia en el Amazonas at the Metropolitan Opera and performed as a puppeteer in the production. He is a principal puppeteer in Anthony Minghella’s production of Madama Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera with puppetry by Blind Summit Theatre. Mr. Lee debuted as a puppeteer at the Lyric Opera in Richard Jones’ Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky. He directed and performed puppetry for Petrushka with the New York Philharmonic at London’s Barbican Centre and performed in Le Grand Macabre at Avery Fisher Hall conducted by Alan Gilbert, both created by Doug Fitch and Giants Are Small. He has performed in Dan Hurlin’s Obie-award winning puppet works Hiroshima Maiden, Disfarmer and Demolishing Everything With Amazing Speed. Mr. Lee was a principal puppeteer in Lee Breuer’s epic puppet opera La Divina Caricatura at La MaMa.

Tom is co-director of Chicago Puppet Studio, a part of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival. His theater design work includes puppets, projections and sets for theatre, dance, opera and film including Florencia en el Amazonas (Metropolitan Opera), Monkey (Whitesnake Productions, Paramount Theater, Boston), Vancouver (Ma-Yi Theater Company, UNIMA Citation), The Steadfast Tin Soldier (Lookingglass Theater, Jeff Award 2019), A Christmas Carol (Alliance Theater), Pinocchio (House Theater Chicago), The Scarlet Ibis (Prototype Festival, HERE Arts Center), The Poacher (Harvard Theatre Dance and Media), many pieces at La MaMa Experimental Theater, in addition to work with choreographers Yoshiko Chuma, Christopher Williams, Lisa Gonzales and Jonathan Meyer.

In 2005, supported by the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Designers, Tom spent two months studying traditional and contemporary puppetry throughout Japan. Here he met Koryū Nishikawa V, headmaster of Hachiōji Kuruma Ningyō (cart puppet theatre company) with whom he has maintained an ongoing creative relationship. Together they developed Shank’s Mare, an international puppet theatre collaboration that has toured throughout the US, Japan and France and received the 2016 Arlyn Award for Outstanding Puppet Theater Design. In 2023, Tom Lee and Koryū Nishikawa premiered their second collaboration, Akutagawa, at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival to high acclaim. Akutagawa will tour to Tokyo in 2024. 

Mr. Lee’s work has received support from The Jim Henson Foundation, The Japan Foundation NY, The TCG/Andrew W. Mellon In the Lab Program, The TCG/ITI Travel Grant Program, The Trust for Mutual Understanding, The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, The Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, The NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Japan Foundation, Asian Cultural Council, The Puppet Lab at St. Ann’s Warehouse and artist residences at High Concept Labs at Mana Contemporary Chicago, Sarah Lawrence College, The Rhodophi International Theater Laboratory (Bulgaria), The Ringling Museum of Art, The Jim Henson Carriage House and The Art Institute of Chicago.

Tom was a guest faculty member at Sarah Lawrence College for ten years and was co-director of the St. Ann’s Puppet Lab from 2009-2011. In 2021, he established the Chicago Puppet Lab with co-director Blair Thomas, seeking to develop and empower new voices creating original work for the puppet theater in Chicago. Tom has taught puppetry manipulation extensively throughout the US and internationally, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Lincoln Center Theater, Northwestern University, Metropolitan Opera, University of Chicago, Seoul Institute of the Arts and the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival. www.tomleeprojects.com

Adam Larsen is a documentary filmmaker, projection artist, and designer based in Asheville, NC. His films include Undersung, which chronicles the experiences of caregivers for severely disabled family members, and Neurotypical, which explores autism from the perspective of autistic individuals and premiered on PBS's POV.

Adam’s projection art spans across a variety of media, including immersive installations and live performance design. Notable projects include A Worm's Eye View, a 360-degree experience for autistic audiences that premiered at the Common Senses Autism Festival and was later presented at the David Brower Center in Berkeley; Nebraska Flatwater, a 10-projector meditation on the Nebraska landscape at Gallery 1516 in Omaha; and The Dharma at Big Sur, a 12-projector installation set to John Adams’s composition, also at Gallery 1516.

In the realm of opera and symphonic performance, Adam has directed three semi-staged operas for the Houston Symphony—Bluebeard’s Castle, Oedipus Rex, and Salome—and conceptualized and crafted Let Me Freeze Again to Death by Missy Mazzoli for the Guggenheim's Works & Process series. He has also co-directed and edited Ellen Reid's Lumee's Dream at LA Opera and directed and edited three works for the Sun Valley Music Festival during the pandemic. Additionally, Adam created and designed Rainbow for the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, an immersive theatrical journey that blends simple science, ancient stories, and the emotional power of color to explore one of Hawaii’s most iconic symbols—the rainbow.

As a projection designer, Adam has contributed to over 200 productions in theatre, dance, symphony, and opera, collaborating with some of the leading voices in these fields. His diverse credits include Broadway’s LoveMusik (directed by Hal Prince), the world premieres of Corigliano's The Lord of Cries at Santa Fe Opera, Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves at Opera Philadelphia, David Lang’s Prisoner of the State with the New York Philharmonic. Adam also designed The Gospel at Colonus (Athens, Edinburgh, Spoleto festivals), Esperanza Spalding's 12 Little Spells tour, and the world premiere of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at the Singapore International Festival. Other credits include Janáček’s From the House of the Dead at Canadian Opera; Bernstein’s Mass at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Lincoln Center; Pelléas et Mélisande at the Cincinnati Symphony; Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann at Hawaii Opera Theatre; Adams’s A Flowering Tree and Handel’s Agrippina at Opera Omaha; Foss’s Phorion with New World Symphony; Mascagni’s Iris at Bard Summerscape; Britten’s Peter Grimes, Bernstein’s On the Town, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, as well as all eight seasons of the SoundBox series at San Francisco Symphony.

Currently, Adam is developing The Pinecone, a mobile 360-degree projection venue designed to bring immersive experiences of the natural world to audiences with disabilities.