Journey into Worlds

According to her program notes, Sharon Chohi Kim was inspired by murmurations—“both spontaneous flocks of starlings and a collection of low, continuous sounds”—in her premiere (one-night only) of the same name. Kim, who is credited as creator, composer, performer and co-choreographer, is a known artistic presence in Los Angeles, having been seen—and heard—around town with institutions and ensembles that include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Hammer Museum and The Industry, the avant-garde opera company originally founded by Yuval Sharon.

Performance

“Murmurations” by Sharon Chohi Kim, with choreographic collaboration by Stephanie Zalatel

Place

REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater), Los Angeles, CA, September 12, 2025

Words

Victoria Looseleaf

Sharon Chohi Kim's “Murmurations.” Photograph by Angel Origgi

That said, she and her co-performers—Sara Sinclair Gomez, Molly Pease and Kathryn Shuman—did not disappoint. Aided by film and video projections by Jennifer Bewerse, the 60-minute intermissionless work began in a form of stasis: a puffy white tarp was the only visible item on the REDCAT stage. Initially, this reviewer thought that the performers were perhaps underneath the prop and would emerge as if ancient Saber-toothed Cats bubbling up from the La Brea Tar Pits, as the prop, through filmed projections, became various and sundry landscapes: sand, a desert, fluctuating colors and shapes, several conjuring images of Pompei’s Mount Vesuvius and an end-of-earth scenario.

But no! This prologue, of sorts and sans visible performers, was, per the program notes, Kim’s “meditation on shape-shifting and collective intelligence.” Set to the live sounds of, among a slew of others, ahs, screeches, squeaks, peeps and chirps, remixed with electronics, the visual imagery was akin to a Wilsonian landscape, where time seemed to stand still, requiring viewers to settle back and not check cell phones, but go into contemplative mode.

Indeed, Kim listed seven sections, with such titles raging from “sand, skin, land, limb” to “ginkgo, growth, cycles, tree,” meaning that when the performers finally appeared, it was not, at least to this writer, unlike Stanley Kubrick’s opening segment, “Dawn of Man” from his masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Okay, well, perhaps it wasn’t that momentous, but it was certainly a relief, albeit a feeling also mixed with curiosity.

Sharon Chohi Kim's “Murmurations.” Photograph by Angel Origgi

From the primordial, then, to life forms moving molasses-like, with lighting designer Chu-Hsuan Chang’s vibrant color palette giving an anime-like feeling at times, while the women continued to create gorgeous vocals over pre-recorded tracks.

Of note: Live murmuration sounds were recorded in Cavan, Ireland by James Nolan, and while this unschooled lover of avian song wouldn’t know an Irish murmuration from a Canadian one, it was good to know that this deep research still happens in the world of performance art—or in the world-at-large at all!

Seriously, this was decidedly performance art. And while Zaletel was named collaborative choreographer, the movement was so minimal—it was less than Butoh-like—that without the accouterments of sounds and film projections (the notes also state that the projected murmurations were generated with a computer program based on Craig Reynolds’ Boids algorithm (1986), the work would be considered neither dance or choreography.

Movement direction yes, and while Kim must be applauded for her attention to detail, specificity and commitment, there was little dance-making to speak of, while a director might also have helped in this arena.

In other words, while some in the audience may have been bemused, there was plenty to savor about the production. To wit: Like a Wagnerian soprano—or two, three or four—these were Valkyries of another order. Clothed in black and lying prone, head-to-head, the quartet could have been a mutant “Rosemary’s Baby,” but more playful, if that’s at all possible, with the exorcist—Kim, herself?—doing the devil’s bidding as she rose, sheathing herself in the white tarp, the trio clinging to her.

Sharon Chohi Kim's “Murmurations.” Photograph by Angel Origgi

Or was this a Shakesperean coven of witches? It mattered not, as what was brewing were these otherworldly sounds, seemingly bubbling up from deep within their souls, their faces, however, blank, their bodies metaphorically able to walk through Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception. And so it went, the lighting veering from calming to interrogation-like, as the performers’ arms wove through the air, rising as the limbs did from these mythic, octopus-like creatures.

Other imagery seemed to recall a mandala, which would befit this ritualistic performance, while the intense vocal motifs occasionally gave way to a tranquility. With Kim sheathed in the fabric, she could have been an angsty Venus rising from a Botticellian sea, her compatriots’ fingers splayed as if collecting sea foam, green feathers floating in the air.

The various tableaux were also enhanced at times by a percussion-like track—perhaps a wind chime—but when the quartet was swaying, crooning and keening, it seemed a visual tone poem, or a bit from Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde”—The Song of the Earth. As the final section, “tree”—such as it was—unspooled, all of the imagery—the melting glaciers, the rolling waves, the re-arrangement of bodies, the sounds and immersive-like film projections—the work came to a quiet, impenetrable close.

Art often asks questions, and while it sometimes has no answers, there was still much to consider in Kim’s “Murmurations,” a small but mighty journey into worlds, physical, spiritual, philosophical, and otherwise.

Victoria Looseleaf

Victoria Looseleaf is an award-winning, Los Angeles-based international arts journalist who covers music and dance festivals around the world. Among the many publications she has contributed to are the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Dance Magazine and KCET’s Artbound. In addition, she taught dance history at USC and Santa Monica College. Looseleaf’s novella-in-verse, Isn't It Rich? is available from Amazon, and and her latest book, Russ & Iggy’s Art Alphabet with illustrations by JT Steiny, was recently published by Red Sky Presents. Looseleaf can be reached through X, Facebook, Instagram and Linked In, as well as at her online arts magazine ArtNowLA.

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