Hello everyone! Soomi Kim here. Please help my new dance theater project Dictee get to the 3rd National Asian American Theater Festival this June in LA. Created in collaboration with Jen Shyu and Suzi Takahashi, featuring Elena Chang. Our goal is to raise $4,000!  

PLEASE WATCH THE HD VIDEO-- it will really help you see what this exciting project is all about and who we are as artists. Video credits: Director- Elena Chang. Director of photography/editing- Brian Chamberlain. Dictee photo by Kenny Wong, bio photo by Steven Schreiber.

Dictee Q & A with Soomi Kim:

Q: Describe Dictee and what it means?

A: Dictee is a full length muliti media dance theater performance based on the text of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s seminal literary collage. Through interchangeable disciplines of spoken text, movement, music, experimental sound and video, performing artists Jen Shyu and I craftily combine our talents as actor/dancer/musicians to create an exhilarating, luminous, collaborative new work under the direction of Suzi Takahashi. Dictee shares the stories of brave women who are ordinary, revolutionary and extraordinary in their common experiences of suffering and the transcendence of suffering. 

Dictee is a French word. It means dictation or to write under dictation. 

This project was accepted in this year's 3rd National Asian American Theater Festival to be held in Los Angeles, June 16th-26th. Performance dates: June 24th and 26th. I will be representing New York City as an individual artist. Find out more about this ground breaking festival:

http://2011.caata.net/

My conception of a theatrical adaptation of Cha's work, Dictee, has become a collaborative process driven project. The 3 main artists are director Suzi Takahashi (http://expgirl.net/takahashi.html), composer/musician Jen Shyu (http://jenshyu.com/) and myself, Soomi Kim. Our collective experimental proclivities bode for exciting and bold theater making. Dictee  will also feature actor Elena Chang and video projections by Chris McClain. The marvelous Leta Tremblay is the assistant director. I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such strong and incredible women!

Although I have performed all over the U.S., I have never performed my own work outside NYC. Since I grew up in Oregon, it has been a long time wish to perform on the west coast. It is a thrill to be performing in LA.

To make this happen, we need your help to raise funds to cover production costs and expenses. 

Q: How does Dictee fit into the CAATA festival's theme this year: NEW DIRECTIONS?

A: My collaborators and I are taking a brilliant and in many people's opinion, under-recognized piece of Asian American work from 1982 and transposing it to the stage 29 years later. I can't think of a more fitting way to bring this adaptation to an audience than with the backing of the CAATA under the theme of New Directions. 

This project will be a part of a documentary film about Cha titled The Dream of the Audience. To find out more about this project go to http://theresahakkyungcha.com/.

Q:  Where the funding will go?

A: Your generous contributions will help buy costumes, set pieces, props, video expenses as well as provide artist / designer fees and travel expenses for 4 people. 

Thank you for your interest and support of this project and a special thank you to those who continue to contribute :)