[sound designer, composer, theatre maker]
ABOUT Ting...
Tingying Dong 董汀滢 is a sound designer, composer, and theatre maker based in London. Since graduating from the Production and Technical Arts course at LAMDA in 2019, Ting has worked on theatre productions across the UK, at venues in London such as National Theatre, Barbican Centre, Royal Court, Young Vic, Theatre Royal Stratford East, and in the West End; and regional theatres such as Bristol Old Vic, Sheffield Crucible, Nottingham Playhouse, and Factory International in Manchester.
In 2023, Ting received The Stage Debut Awards - Best Creative West End Debut, for her sound design work for The Crucible at National Theatre and Gielgud Theatre. In the same year, Walking Cats, a devised theatre project she had been working on as Creative Collaborator, received the Origins Award (for outstanding new work) at Vault Festival.
Ting is especially interested in psychological thrillers, plays that focus on political/social issues, physical theatre, and process-led devising process.
Sound Design / Composing
Having practised piano, singing, and ballet since a young age, Ting harnessed an excellent understanding in music and movement. She makes soundscape and music as part of her design, while on some jobs she solely takes on composition. She delves herself into the physical and psychological world of a story, and translates what she harvests into sound and music. She blends naturalistic and treated sound effects, electronic and acoustic sounding textures and instruments for her fluid and detailed work. In a theatre space, Ting likes to create the feeling of a 'sound bath' for the audience.
Theatre-Making
Ting is on a journey of realising her own and some collective artistic visions. She has been collaborating with directors/writers, designers from different disciplines, puppeteers, and dancers on a few projects. These work tend to land in experimental, multi-disciplinary, and magical realistic forms.
Technical Work
Ting enjoys the feeling of navigating through a busy back stage so she used to work as a mic tech. She depped on large-scale shows including Les Miserable (Sondheim Theatre), 9 to 5 the Musical (Savoy Theatre) and Stranger Things (Secret Cinema). Although due to the busy schedule for her design work, Ting has had to step away from backstage work for a little while now.
A Little Background Story
Ting grew up in Beijing. Before pursuing a career in theatre, she was studying for an MSc in Behavioural Economics in Rotterdam. Intimidated by the thought of working with numbers and equations by an office desk for the rest of her life (now we know it's called 'quarter-life crisis'), Ting decided to change career and dig into her long-time hobby: theatre-making. She moved to London to train at LAMDA, where she found her interest in sound, and the rest is history.
On Ting's previous work:
"Tingying Dong’s soundtrack has an eerie, unsettling edge, featuring sharp percussive handclaps and breathy, ominous vocalisations"
The Stage on The Little Foxes (Young Vic)
“Tingying Dong's beautifully ephemeral sound design creates the sensation of time slipping by”
The Guardian on Dear Octopus (National Theatre)
“Tingying Dong … provides a lyrical, atmospheric soundtrack of tinkling chimes, whisper-soft vocalisations and delicate drones”
The Stage on Lyonesse (Harold Pinter Theatre)
“Tingying Dong's brilliant sound design lurches between off-kilter dance music and electronic shrieks and rumbles”
The Times on Macbeth (Northern Stage/International Tour/ETT)
“Tingying Dong’s suspenseful sound design amplifies the tension as chilling detail creeps in”
The Guardian on Ruckus (Southwark Playhouse)
"A gently vibrating sound design – all credit to designers Tingying Dong and Paul Arditti – quivers ominously as it presages disaster"
iNews on The Crucible (National Theatre)
"The celebrations are lent great energy and atmosphere by composer Tingying Dong"
The Telegraph on A Christmas Carol (Nottingham Playhouse)
"In tandem with the listener’s experiences at the hands of their creativity, Imaginarium relies heavily on Tingying Dong’s sound design and composition, quintessentially the production’s principal strength outside of Dean’s voice-over. Sharp, Dong’s audio tracks and quirks cause the brain to utilise its keen ability to construct a world around it, particularly whenever the production asks us to close our eyes and embrace our less visual senses. From cafes and rustles to sudden storms and bombastic crescendos, Imaginarium’s audio design complements the minimal composition of music it uses to accentuate the listener’s mood, rather than lead."
- The Reviews Hub on Imaginarium
“Tingying Dong’s amazing soundscape, electronics effects and natural ambience leads you into new and fantastic possibilities.”
"Tingying Dong’s sound design is extremely detailed and immersive in a wholly naturalistic way. This works well as a crutch in illustrative support of a complex script that takes its listener’s imagination from space battles to gushing rivers and mountain tops."
- A Younger Theatre on Imaginarium
"... a variety of journeys through time, space and imagination, aided always by confident and apt sound design of Tingying Dong"
- Thespyinthestalls on Imaginarium
"Tingying Dong’s soundscape is laced with the incessant hum of the spacecraft that so annoys its passengers, all of which combines to create the pressure cooker like environment so essential for this production."
"the moments underscored by music (Tingying Dong) are heartfelt and apt"
- Within Her Word on The First
"medical-drama-meets-Royal-Court sound design by sound designer Tingying Dong"
- Within Her Words on Blood Orange
"all set to a pulsating disco beat that adds to the magnificence and urgency of the play"