Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Huhao Yang. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Huhao, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I have always thought that I am lucky and happy to be able to create art works as my job to make a living. Because this allows me to truly create something of my own and meaningful. I often talk to some of my friends who have so-called “regular jobs” and I find that it is often difficult for them to get a true sense of accomplishment and belonging from their jobs, because most of them think they are just selling their labor in exchange for income. If I had a “regular job,” I think I might also lose enthusiasm for what I do, because what I create with my time and energy may not necessarily be entirely mine, and I may just be a small screw inside a large project.
But as an artist, each of my works is like a small world created by me, which incorporates the views, thoughts, and emotions I want to express. And I will devote all my enthusiasm to this kind of creative process, because this kind of creation is completely mine. When I present my works to others, many people will be infected or inspired by those worlds I created. This is the most meaningful and happy thing to me. And I hope to create more art works and leave some traces of myself in this world.

Huhao, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I currently work as a theatre sound designer and composer. My relationship with sound and music started when I was 4 years old, I grew up in China, and my mother is a very typical Asian parent. She just want me to have some special skills than other “normal kids”. At that time, she thought playing the piano was a very elegant thing, so she just took me, who knew nothing about music at the time, to start learning piano from a local teacher in my hometown. At first I was very, very bored with this matter, because the little boy had no patience to practice those complicated piano pieces, and my mother would scold me and force me to sit on the piano bench to practice, but slowly and I don’t know when it started, I began to feel that playing the piano was not that painful. Sometimes I will immerse myself wholeheartedly in it. When those smooth melodies and notes flow from my fingertips, I’m also touched by the music I hear. And then I just continued to play the piano for many years. As I grew up, my love for music gradually expanded into my sensitivity to sound. In high school I was obsessed with watching movies and live performances, but every time, what touches me most about those works is not the visual shock, but the sounds that directly hit my heart. I have always felt that vision 、has limitations, but sound can sometimes transcend physical boundaries. When we sit in a theatre and look at the limited scenery on the stage, the sounds we hear in our ears can transcend the boundaries of space. to the seaside, in the mountains, and in the sky. As long as there is enough imagination, designers can build anything through sounds. After I was impressed by this charm countless times, I decided to officially start learning to create sounds.
When I was an undergraduate student in China, I majored in recording art with a focus area of film sound design and production. And I also got many opportunities to go to some large television units and work on some live performances, including some really big shows like China Central Television’s Spring Festival Gala, which is one of the most watched show in Chinese New Year’s Eve, and The Voice of China, which is a nationwide broadcasting music talent show. Towards the end of my undergraduate degree, I found that I had learned a lot about audio engineering techniques, but my attainments in the artistic concepts of sound creation were still shallow. Therefore, I decided to further learn some knowledge that is more inclined to the study of artistic concepts, and theatre sound design is a very comprehensive and good choice for me. And US has a profound history of theater culture, which is very suitable for me to further study, so I came here and chose Purdue Theatre as the place to complete my Master of Fine Arts degree.
In the years at Purdue, I have served as a sound designer and composer for all kinds of university main stage theatre productions, like the classic feminist play Fefu and Her Friends, the unique historical play Men on Boats, and a university premiere play El Mito or The Myth of My Pain, etc. I also got the experience for working as an associate sound designer for an off-Broadway production This Land Was Made at Vineyard Theatre in New York. Besides theatre shows, I also actively participated in off-campus internships for other types of sound work. I followed Chicago-based production company Centerstage and participate in many large corporate conference productions such as Toyota, Wyndham. My excellent productions and extensive working experience have be recognized by USITT and earned me the 2023 Robert E. Cohen Sound Achievement Award.
All these experiences make me love what I do more and more. As I have always said, I am very lucky and happy to be able to create art and sound works as my career. I will continue to persevere on this road and leave more meaningful works to myself and the world.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

In my view, ensuring diversity and inclusion is really the best way for society to build a creative environment. Supporting a diverse cultural environment is particularly important. Allowing people from different countries, regions and social groups to freely express all creative ideas within reasonable limits can greatly promote the prosperity of creation. When I work for theatre productions, I encountered plays written by playwrights from various cultural backgrounds. I’m often surprised that some cultures that I don’t know much about or are familiar with often contain very profound artistic heritage. For example, one of my sound design production at Purdue theatre is a story of a Colombian immigrant family, it also tells the story of pure same-sex marriage and love. For a production that reflects diversity, I delved deep into research, engaging with Colombian immigrant families and LGBTQ+ community members to comprehend their experiences and cultural nuances better. This ensured my design was authentic and free from stereotypes, providing audience members from those communities a reflection of their experiences, amalgamated with diversity and equality.
Sometimes when designing, we as artists tend to be timid because we don’t understand some niche cultures that are unfamiliar to us. And society can help these cultures or groups amplify their voices and let them have their own place on the big creative platform of the society. A diverse and inclusive creative environment can stimulate the collision and integration of creative ideas from different artists, thus producing more high-quality works.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

One of my most important goals in the creative process is to let the audience get their own touch and resonance from my works. When creating art, especially theatre, I am actually telling stories to all kinds of strangers. And it can be very difficult to make all strangers with different backgrounds, education and thoughts to resonate with your story. For example, when you tell strangers in the elevator about your bad day, although they may verbally express their blessings or express regrets for you, in fact, they rarely sympathize with your feelings and will immediately forget the stories you just told.
When I create works, I hope that I can more or less allow every stranger to get something from them. I want to present my ideas in a more comprehensive and multi-angle way in my works, and connect everyone’s universal emotions, and let everyone connect all their own background and experiences to get some unique feelings from my work. I always try to stimulate a cohesive collective experience by inciting the audience to involuntarily recall prior dramatic moments in the story, creating what we refer to as involuntary explicit episodic memories. When we stimulate mental timetravel in each unique audience member by causing each audience member to reexperience prior events in their own life, and associate that with specific moments in the play, we may be able to allow them to gain their own unique experience and feelings from our stories. This is what I always strive to achieve in my every creative process.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.yanghuhao.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yanghuhao1/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/huhao.yang.75?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/huhao-yang-6a4085233/
• Other: Douyin (Chinese TikTok) ID: yang_huhao

Image Credits
All pictures are taken by Huhao Yang