Puppetopia: The Emotions

The Emotions is a two-act experimental music performance co-conceived by Korean master instrumentalist gamin and Japanese composer and artist Sachiyo Takahashi. The culmination of a three-year residency, The Emotions, using traditional and folk East Asian music as entry points, explores the intricacies and power of emotional expressions found in traditional Eastern Asian cultures while also reflecting on the role of emotions in our contemporary, hi-tech world in which they are often stereotyped, fragmented, or left behind.

The Emotions: Impermanence

gamin, as a coda for her residency at HERE, creates an experimental music theater piece, Impermanence, exploring avenues to bridge the gap between traditional and modern, movement and stillness, sound and visual. “Impermanence” is a sound-driven experiment, with gamin teaming up with percussionist Satoshi Takeishi, violinist Jason Lee, visual artist Hua Hua Zhang, and lighting designer Ayumu Poe Segusa. All are experienced in traditional Asian and contemporary experimental music and arts, emphasizing “playfulness” among the artists. 

‘Movement in Silence,’ melds the emotion of Korean Dance, and systematically seeks an effective expression of artistic features in the culture and creative process. Mostly, we explore how emotion is sublimated to achieve catharsis.

The Emotions: Equinox

The Emotions: Equinox, by Sachiyo Takahashi, is an abstract storytelling through puppets/objects, live projection, and original music, developed in collaboration with Korean video and object designer Yudam and puppet builder/puppeteer Emma Wiseman. The story told in The Emotions: Equinox is a birth of emotion and its transformation that finally reach a sort of festivity to find a new beginning, like the cycle of the earth suddenly shifting at the equinox to mark a rebirth. Through this work, Sachiyo explores and shares what makes the material alive and emotional through the lens of East Asia, celebrating the exact time of the equinox with the audience after a long pause with the pandemic.

Support for The Emotions is provided by the Jerome Foundation; Café Royal Cultural Foundation; a Workshop Grant of The Jim Henson Foundation; and made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Puppetopia is made possible through the generous support of Cheryl Henson. Individual performances are made possible with support from The Jim Henson Foundation, The Jim Henson Foundation Residency at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, and Puppetry at the Carriage House (PATCH) Residency.

Updated: March 8, 2023

HERE is now a mask-optional space. All patrons attending HERE performances and events will no longer be required to wear masks.

We ask all audience members to please stay home if they have a sore throat, are feeling sick in any other way, or have been recently exposed to COVID-19, and to please contact the box office for refunds or exchanges.

All of our performers, technicians, and staff members are required to be fully vaccinated and masked unless they are onstage performing. Additionally, they are participating in an active testing regimen to keep everyone as safe as possible.

HERE reserves the right to revise protocols as the rate of transmission changes and in light of new scientific data that may present itself.