Inside Yellow Sound and the Vibrations of the Audience's Soul

This chapter explores the double role of sound in theatre music as a conceptual device on the one hand and as an experiential reality on the other with reference to the staging of Wassily Kandinsky's Yellow Sound (1912) in an interactive installation. Inside Yellow Sound (2021) made use of a wearable technology for sound and movement interaction and enabled the participants to create through their movement the lights and sounds that comprise Kandinsky's composition. Drawing on primary and secondary sources, the chapter presents the function of sound and music in Kandinsky's thinking and artistic practice and then considers the way sound informed the embodied experience of the participants within the installation. The experience of the participants is discussed in relation to material from exit interviews and through the lenses of Don Ihde's work on embodied technics (1990) and the concept of 'sound image' (Young 2007). The chapter argues that the installation operated as an instrument through which the participants played Kandinsky's composition.