Week 12: Where Paths Meet Again — A Conversation with Gu Yiyang
- 必达 康
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
This week, the project continued through a cross-national online conversation with Gu Yiyang. Compared with the previous interview, this episode felt especially personal to me. It is difficult to imagine that a friend I first met at a film event three years ago would eventually become part of this project in such a meaningful way.
Having a deeper conversation with her is something I always want to do for a long time. She is a friend I deeply admire, not only because of her knowledge, but also because of the way she has continued to move through film, theatre, and creative practice with persistence.
Yiyang is currently studying Film, Exhibition and Curation at the University of Edinburgh, which is also a field I have been interested in for a long time. In many ways, she has been one of the reasons why I determined to study Screen and Media Studies. Her path gave me a clearer sense of what film and artistic practice could become as a future direction. I wish that I can become someone like her one day.
This is also why this episode means so much to me personally. It is not only an interview about theatre, film curation, musicals, or live performance, but also a conversation shaped by memory, changes, and distance. The fact that we were able to reconnect across different countries made the conversation feel even more meaningful.
During the conversation, we talked about her academic experience, her continued participation within theatre, and the relationship between live performance and audiences. Through her reflections, theatre became more than just a performance. It appeared as a way of experiencing time, emotion, presence, and human connection. This connects closely with the main concern of Unseen Curtain that how classical performing arts continue to matter in contemporary life, not only as cultural forms, but also as personal experiences that shape how we see, feel, and perceive the world.
This episode also expanded the project by bringing in a younger, transnational perspective. Unlike academic voices, Yiyang’s perspective was rooted in lived experience, study, and personal growth. Her story helped me think more carefully about how audiences encounter performance, and how such practices can gradually become part of someone’s identity and artistic expression.
The editing process was also very enjoyable for me. Compared with the previous episode, the sound quality of this time improved a lot, especially because I was able to record in a fully soundproof room. The different time zone between the two countries also gave me more time to prepare and run audio tests before the conversation began, which made the whole process feel much smoother.
For the intro and outro, I chose to use Never Enough from The Greatest Showman, which we also mentioned during the conversation. In a way, this created a sense of connection between the structure of the episode and the content of the discussion. It was a song that both of us liked, and I was really glad that we shared this agreement. This also made the editing process feel more natural, as the music became not just background, but part of the emotional thread of the episode.
Through this episode, I was able to reconnect with someone who has shaped my own artistic path, while also bringing another valuable voice into my project.
References:
Allred, L. (2017). Never Enough [Song]. On The Greatest Showman (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). Atlantic Records. Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/track/0Gl5s8IhMmQE5YQwM8Qx1J
Gracey, M. (Director). (2017). The Greatest Showman [Film]. Chernin Entertainment; TSG Entertainment; 20th Century Fox.
Kang, B. (2026). Unseen Curtain — Episode 02: Conversations with Gu Yiyang [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/mqZHkl5Y-FY
Kang, B. (2026). Unseen Curtain — Episode 02: Conversations with Gu Yiyang [Audio podcast episode]. In Unseen Curtain Podcast. Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/episode/3fYa21puKnRw4IyYkReaIr
Comments