CLEARING

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.

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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.

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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.