Emotions Through Design: Formosa Quartet

When sitting through this complex performance I couldn’t help but notice the attention to detail. Every room and song had a meaning behind it, and even a story to tell. These emotions and fables were told through the design of the performance and the songs the musicians played to meet the design. I will speak specifically about the layout of each room, the light used in each room, and the song that was played.

The first song took place in the Main Concert Hall in Empac. The audience was sitting on the stage looking all the way up to the top row of seats. The four performers were sitting in front of a wall that was washed with light to reveal the beautiful texture of the façade. This light made the performers merely silhouettes. This imagery made through lighting and layout fit perfectly with the somber song that was being played for us. Even though the song was somewhat slow and dark, it was also peaceful and enjoyable.

The second scenario was in Studio 1. The performers were sitting facing each other in the middle of the room, and we had to sit surrounding them on all sides. There were just a few downlights illuminating the performers and their stage. This light put dark shadows underneath their faces and bodies creating a creepy and tense feeling. This was the exact feeling of the song that was played. It was aggressive with lots of dissonance and sharp jumps in tones and keys. The room had barely any reverb so all the music was centralized between the performers as if they were killing something in between them.

The third was in Studio 2. The layout of the room was strange. The performers were segregated to the walls of the room. Each wall in this cube had a performer with an uplight behind them washing the wall. This light was very warm and revealed the technology that makes up the room. There were also a few more downlights washing the musicians from the front making them very bright and pleasing looking. The music again matched this attitude found in the room. But, what was different was that the audience was seated in the middle facing only one performer, or the audience was sitting next to a performer. This made you search for each piece of the song and really helped the audience separate the instruments.

The fourth was in the Theater. The layout was very regular, the listeners were sitting in the seats looking into the stage, but what changed was that the performers were sunken into the stage so we couldn’t see them. There was this bright red light that filled the hole they were in and there was also a foggy environment in the theater that made the hole glow. It looked like they fell into hell and it sounded that way too. The music was anxious and sharp; it made my heart race. It felt like I was in a horror movie, like something bad was going to happen, but it never did.

The last was my favorite of the five performances. It was back in the Main Concert Hall in the classic layout with the listeners in the seats and the players on the stage. The lights were very dim downlights on the stage when we entered. The song at this moment was very slow and curious. I felt like I was in the deep blue exploring something slightly terrifying, but it was only terrifying because I didn’t know what it was. As the song picked up in speed and become more enlightened, the lights became brighter and warmer and illuminated the whole stage. The song made me feel like what I finally discovered in the deep blue was so beautiful, as if it was something I had never seen before. This cycled one more time and ended with the feeling of curiosity still in the air. But, it was a lighter more vibrant curiosity than the beginning. We were left wanting more.