Jungwoong Kim: what we have, that’s enough #3, March 2025

what we have, that’s enough is a series of five improvised performances curated by Studio 34's artist-in-residence Jungwoong Kim. Each performance will present a different configuration of artists from diverse disciplines—dancers/movers, vocalists, instrumentalists, designers, visual artists—in spontaneous and continuous improvisations among two to five artists. They will explore what possibilities can emerge when various types of improvisers commit to being present for and responsive to one another. Short talks and informal discussions will invite audience members and performers to exchange thoughts and observations on how practices of improvisation can build awareness, trust, and connection.

This third performance will feature Jungwoong Kim performing with fellow dancer Kendra Portier musicians Bhob Rainey and Eugene Lew, designer Maiko Matsushima, and juggler Luther Bangert. Jungwoong's special collaborator Germaine Ingram will open and close the performance. Reception to follow.

Attend one, some, or all of the performances.

Admission to each is $10–$20 sliding scale, or get a series pass for $40!

Artist Bios:

Jungwoong Kim, born and raised in South Korea, has been a dance/performing artist, choreographer, curator, actor, theater choreographer and arts educator for 25 years. He is trained in Korean martial arts and traditional dance/ritual of Korean shamanism, which strongly inform his aesthetic and artistic vision.  Kim describes his practice as "a dynamic dialogue between my training and background in South Korean traditional dance and music and my embrace of western improvisation, especially Contact Improvisation, as a performance medium." His performance practice spans a spectrum of improvisational solos, durational ensemble work, site-specific engagement with visual and media artists, and characterizations for mainstage and experimental theater. He has performed with noted Contact Improvisors such as Karen Nelson and Christine Simpson. His work has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and the Knight Foundation among other funders.

Bhob Rainey is a Philadelphia-based composer, saxophonist, and sound designer celebrated for his innovative contributions to contemporary, experimental, and improvised music. A recipient of the prestigious Pew Fellowship in the Arts and co-founder of the influential improvisational duo nmperign, Rainey has garnered acclaim for his groundbreaking work across disciplines, including collaborations in theater, dance, and visual art. With performances and commissions spanning prestigious venues and festivals worldwide, his work continuously challenges boundaries of musical thought and instrumental technique.

Eugene Lew is a Philadelphia-based guide, producer, educator, and organizer primarily engaged in the performance, design, access, management, transformation, (attempted) capture, storage, and playback of shared IRL experiences – with a sound/music bias. The fleeting moment, aggregate independent decision-making, and stochastic phenomena are especially fascinating and vital to his practice and general existence. He welcomes serendipitous collaborations and treasures long-term partnerships that seek to navigate and explore the constant cycle of remembering-learning-forgetting-reconstructing.

Germaine Ingram is a Philadelphia-based jazz percussive dancer, choreographer, song writer, vocal/dance improviser, oral historian, and cultural strategist and archivist. She creates evening-length pieces that explore themes related to history, collective memory and social justice, and designs and directs arts/culture projects that explore and illuminate community cultural history.  She collaborates with artists from diverse cultural traditions and artistic disciplines, including jazz/experimental music composers, site-specific/informed choreographers, dance and vocal improvisers, African Diasporic culture specialists, and visual/media artists. Her recent writing is represented by a chapter she co-authored with Dr. Toni Shapiro-Phim for an international academic publication on the arts and human rights.  She collaborated with musician/composer/curator Alex B. Shaw and filmmaker Aidan Un on a media installation for the 2023/2024 group exhibition Bahia Reverb, sponsored by the California African American Museum.  She is part of an international cohort of improvisational vocalists and movers in Murmuration, a new performance ensemble led by improvisational vocalist Rhiannon and Canadian dancer/choreographer Margie Gillis.  Germaine’s work has been recognized with fellowships, project grants and residencies from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Leeway Foundation, Independence Foundation, Lomax Family and Wyncote Foundations, the Sacatar Institute in Itaparica Brazil, the Robert Rauschenberg Residency, and in 2024 with a Philadelphia Cultural Treasures Fellowship.

Kendra Portier is a dance artist—a choreographer, educator, and performer.  Born at home in Ohio, Kendra has facilitated dance and performed across the globe from San Diego to Salzburg, Dushanbe to Athens (Greece, Georgia, and Ohio). She has an extensive teaching portfolio and holds the Maya Brin Endowed Professorship in Dance at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she is on faculty. Portier has contributed to a wide range of works, including a decade with David Dorfman Dance (NY), and most recently performing in projects directed by Big Dance Theater (The March!: Annie-B Parson, Donna Uchizono, Tendayi Kuumba), Lisa Race, Jasmine Hearn, and Cynthia Oliver/Coco Dance. Her choreography has been presented nationally, drawing inspiration from Portier’s visual arts practice and ecological interests. Recent and upcoming choreographies include untitled vital glacier, All Tomorrows, skies we’ve yet to see, and red dirt glitter. www.kendraportier.com

Luther Bangert is a juggler and dancer specializing in expressive ball juggling technique and movement. Originally from southeast Iowa, he began juggling in 2005 while studying philosophy at the University of Iowa. After graduating in 2010 Luther traveled to India and performed with the Great Bombay Circus. In 2012, after encountering the worlds of contemporary circus and street performance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, he traveled the USA, Europe, Australia, and Asia, street performing and interacting with contemporary circus and dance schools, communities, and festivals along the way. Since 2017 he has studied qi gong and dance with Daria Faïn in her COREMOTION program in New York City. Luther is currently based in Philadelphia, where since September 2022 he has taught at the Circadium School of Contemporary Circus (the first accredited college for circus in the USA). Luther has recently shared his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City as well as the Flying Carpet Children Festival in and around Mardin, Turkey. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the International Jugglers’ Association (IJA) and is devoted to bringing juggling to new places in his own practice, in his teaching, and in the world. His most recent work ‘Hourglass’ explores time, materiality, and impermanence, and takes place beneath the swinging arc of an open hourglass.

Maiko Matsushima is a visual and installation artist, and a scenic and costume designer for theatre, dance, opera and film. Matsushima is based in Philadelphia, where she often designs for the Wilma Theatre, Pig Iron, the Arden, Headlong, and BalletX. Matsushima recently designed Matthew Ozawa’s acclaimed reimagining of Madama Butterfly for the Cincinnati and Detroit Operas. Matsushima spent two decades based in NYC, designing costumes for regional theaters and NY theaters and associate designing Broadway productions such as Wicked, Pacific Overtures and Spring Awakening. Her work has been seen at Classic Stage Company, the Prototype Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, Children’s Theatre Company, and Soho Rep. She is a professor of design at Bryn Mawr College.

Future installments of what we have, that’s enough will run monthly on Saturdays at 7:00 PM: April 19, and May 24. Jungwoong Kim is also offering a Wednesday morning workshop series as part of his residency—Click here for info and registration..