CLEARING
Sound Design
Directed by: Leila Ghaemi
Lighting Design: Danielle Elegy
Costume Design: Cami Wright
Scenic Design: Ja Hong
Stage Manager: Natalie Main
Photography: Ja Hong
This story followed a group of four girls who work in “LaLaLea”, a yoga and fitness apparel store, as they learn of a murder that happens in a neighboring store (based off the real-life story of a murder that happens in LuLuLemon). The store functions as a pressure cooker for them, and the employees are pressured into perfecting their physical and spiritual selves, to the point of committing acts of violence.
In the design for the piece, we wanted to explore the world of the piece, and what exactly about the store makes it such a complicated place. As most of the piece takes place in the store, this is where we focused on. I created a number of overly-processed, generic, pop-sounding musical pieces that represented the music that would be playing in a store like LuLuLemon, but which exposed unattainable ideals that are constantly pressuring us in our lives with the use of fake-sounding vocals and impossibly peppy loops.
The second sample here was used as the first thing the audience heard, in which I layered the cliché meditation sounds, like you would find in a mobile app, layered with a voiceover recorded by one of the actors in which she is instructing the newcomer in yoga. Eventually, the on-stage actors took over, and recited a cult-like mantra. I wanted to contrast that negativity with the supposed calmness of the natural flute and ocean sounds immediately prior.