Jungwoong Kim: what we have, that’s enough #4, April 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 fourth performance will feature Jungwoong Kim with returning performers David Brick,  Germaine Ingram, Kendra Portier and Luther Bangert joined by Justin Jain and Mel Hsu. Reception to follow.

Admission to this show is $10–$30 sliding scale.

PERFORMER BIOS:

David Brick collaborates broadly in making dance, participatory installations and community. The experience of growing up hearing in a Deaf family influences his thinking about how bodies perform as both subjects and agents of culture. Losing his hearing as an adult continues to contribute to his holistic and innovative practices that understand inclusivity as a resource for making work that is more meaningful and excellent in every sense. David is Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Headlong Dance Theater, a platform for performance research founded in Philly in 1993. David also directs the Headlong Performance Institute, a trans-disciplinary performance practice and training residency whose graduate fellows are leaders in creating experimental and community-based work around the US. Headlong’s large body of work has been performed natonally and internationally, and is known for its experiential and participatory nature, often co-created with audiences and communities. David’s work has received many awards and accolades including a NY Bessie for choreography; a Japan-US Friendship Commission Fellowship and a Pew Fellowship in the arts. A significant part of David’s work is created in collaboration with other artists as they exchange approaches and values, particularly around process and community building. Precious collaborations with artists whose insights continue to influence him, include Jungwoong Kim and Germaine Ingram, Ishmael Houston Jones, Eiko Otake, Rosie Herrera, Dan Rothenberg, Toshiki Okada, Maiko Matsushima, Mimi Lien, Hari Krishnan, Jaamil Kosoko, Reggie Wilson, Larissa Velez Jackson, and Richard Bull/ Cynthia Novack.

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.

Justin Jain is an Actor, Director, Educator, and Wilma HotHouse Company member, previously appearing in Kiss, The Cherry Orchard, Minor Character, and Heroes of the Fourth Turning among many others at The Wilma. When not onstage, he’s making new work with his Barrymore nominated alt-comedy theatre company, The Berserker Residents (www.berserkerresidents.com). Additionally, Mr. Jain has performed Off-Broadway and with many regional theaters including: 1812 Productions, Arden Theatre Company, InterAct, Lantern Theatre, Azuka, People’s Light, FringeArts, Shakespeare in Clark Park, McCarter Theatre, Theatre Horizon, Passage Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, The Assembly in Edinburgh, ASU Gammage, and Ars Nova NYC, among others. Justin won the 2019 Barrymore for Outstanding Performance in a Play for his work in The Great Leap. He teaches Theatre at his alma mater, The University of the Arts. As a Director, Justin’s recent credits include The Chinese Lady at InterAct Theatre, No Child… at The Arden, This is the Week That Is at 1812 productions, among many others. As a Dancer and Movement Coordinator / Choreographer, Justin has worked with choreographer David Gordon, Headlong Dance Theatre, The University of the Arts, 1812 Productions, among others. Justin hails from a dance background, later moving into theatre as an actor and is in constant pursuit of the actor’s full expression of the body as a vehicle for transcendent storytelling. Recent performance credits include Alice In Wonderland: A Musical Panto at People’s Light and The Play That Goes Wrong at 1812 Productions.

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.

Mel Hsu (she/they) is a sonic painter of impossible worlds. As a multi-instrumentalist, Mel often ventures from her classical roots as a cellist into unexpected, cross-disciplinary collaborations. Rooted in Philadelphia, Mel’s restless spirit finds adventure across time zones and oceans as musical and administrative support for others who inspire them. Mel is a spreadsheet nerd, a slow reader, and a shameless instigator of kitchen dance parties. www.melhsu.com 

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. Kim teaches workshops nationally and internationally that focus on movement, deep listening, and observation practices as a form of thinking that we can apply to any aspect of life, be it dancing, making, or being in the world. He has been adjunct faculty at Temple University (Philadelphia PA), University of the Arts (Philadelphia PA), and Franklin & Marshall College (Lancaster PA), and been a visiting teaching artist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston MA), and Richmond University (Richmond VA). He regularly leads workshops for the Hothouse repertory company of Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, and has led improvisation workshops across the U.S. and in Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Germany, Japan, Thailand and South Korea. His work has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, the Independence Foundation, and the Knight Foundation among other funders.