A performance exploring the embodied rituals of the Korean bathhouse, drawn from childhood memories. I saw bodies. Grandma? Mom? The lady? The virgin? A 90-year-old woman? and her caregiver. I also saw them rubbing, scrubbing, applying yogurt, sometimes cucumber, massaging, kneading, rinsing, talking, comforting, laughing, yelling, cursing, and worrying.
A performance exploring the embodied rituals of the Korean bathhouse, drawn from memories I have observed since the age of seven. Though not a single drop of water was used, the space was thick with humidity, created through light and aluminum foil, evoking the dampness and sticky residue of time. By sharing this sensory nostalgia of Korean rituals with dancers from entirely different cultural backgrounds, the work summoned deeply intimate recollections in unexpected ways.
Performance | Dec 9 2024
Presented at California Institute of the Arts, CA, US
Medium: A tub, lanterns, overhead projector, live drawing, aluminum foil
Collaborators: GĒR Collective (performance), Odessa Newman (choreography), Kaiqi Zhang & Samuel Mainzer (costume), Kyle Eichinger (light), Arushi Kejariwal & Abril Jiang (production design), Hao Chen (illustration), and more fellow artists from CalArts XDP
