Emilio Bastré: Fragile Enough for a Strong Connection.
Skene Staff
Emilio Bastré is a Mexican actor and member of the Compañía Nacional de Teatro whose work lives at the intersection of freedom and craft.
Emilio Bastré is a Mexican actor and member of the Compañía Nacional de Teatro whose work lives at the intersection of freedom and craft.
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From dismantling VCRs in his parents’ garage to crafting immersive lighting experiences onstage, Zach Young has always been driven by two forces: curiosity and storytelling. A lighting and media designer with a flair for blending the technical and the poetic, Zach’s work often pushes the boundaries of what design can do.
His latest piece Levitations—a danceable structure embedded with pixel lighting and activated by movement from choreographer Alyssa Johnson—brought together his passion for hands-on making and imaginative design, offering a glimpse into the future of multimedia scenography. Rooted in his experience as a neurodivergent artist, Zach approaches collaboration with deep empathy and intention, always seeking ways to help stories feel more deeply understood. Whether breaking barriers with embedded light or dreaming up new worlds for dance and performance, Zach is building a practice that invites wonder, connection, and innovation.
Get to know this inventive emerging voice in lighting and media design in this edition of NEW TALENTS.
My journey began when I was just a kid and playing with toys. I still remember the stories I would tell myself as I formed worlds in my mind to tell them. Creating and destroying worlds in my bedroom and doing it all over again with a new story or chapter to tell. This was the beginning of my storying telling but I also was insatiably curious. I would take apart anything I could get my hands on to understand how it worked. When I became old enough, I learned carpentry from my dad, this was a pivotal moment for me. Tools would become a lifestyle from then on. I would break down any electronics, broken tools, furniture, anything I could get my hands on to understand how it worked. Then I would try to recreate it and eventually taking my own twist on it. I’ve come a long way from my parent’s garage with a screwdriver and broken VCR but my curiosity for understanding how things work around me and to recreate them in my own way is still very much alive. My pension for storytelling, sometimes lengthy ones, is still and always will be very much alive. Now as an artist I have found joy in collaborating with other artist to tell stories and to make art. I’ve transformed over the years from someone who worked alone to being unable to imagine not creating without others.
Recently a piece I designed and help produce, called Levitations, is extremely important to me. I fully designed and built a danceable structure with imbedded lights into the scenic structure. I was the Lighting/Projection/Scenic designer for this. It was a test of my ability as a designer to work on so many areas but also it was bringing two halves of my self together, both the creative and the technical sides. I love and need to design but I also really enjoy at times to physically create the designs. I also was able to keep working with lighting in a new way of only lighting this show with the imbedded pixel tape and incorporate projections. This was a production that represented so many aspects of myself but also helped me realize new directions I would like go/continue to go in. I have a big desire to keep working with dance companies and I would like to keep making danceable structures with imbedded lighting for them!
In being neurodivergent, it can be difficult to be understood. I have spent time learning how to communicate my thoughts and feelings in ways that can be understood by others. This influences my work because I want to help others feel understood. I use the tools I have to ask questions and collaborate with directors, choreographers, other designers to ensure the story is told in its entirety. I embrace working with those of different background and experiences because wanting to be understood is a global experience.
This isn’t a unique challenge to me by any degree, but financial concerns have been one of the biggest challenges that has held me back as an artist. The cost of higher education when I went to undergrad was a lot and I took on debt to pay for it, similarly for graduate school. I don’t regret in the slightest my choices for these degrees, but it has caused and continues to make me worry about how to pay these debts along with the rising cost of living while working in the arts. I stay in this field of creating art in different forms because I not only love it, but I need it. This is a career that fulfills me and lets me express my whole self in ways that I haven’t found anywhere else. The alure of jobs that I know would provide me financial security is hard, but I have found what allows me to be me. I will always continue to make art because this is what I need to do. I’m hoping to find producing entities and companies that would like to collaborate with creating new art centered around embedded lights.
My hope is to inspire people in new ways. That all sorts of paths can lead you to the arts. If one kid see’s my work and is inspired to start dreaming of how they could make or design a show or anything, then I’ll have done a good job. I want my work to inspire a vivid imagination with people so that they start dreaming of new stories to tell and how to tell them. I would be happy if future generations built upon my work to create beautiful and more inspiring work than I ever could have imagined myself. I dream of those that will come after and the work they have yet to create.
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