Soomi Kim is a New York based actor, theatre maker, and movement artist. Her works are biographical and autobiographical narratives created in a hybrid, collaborative form.
Kim is most known for spearheading a trilogy of plays inspired by the lifeworks of Bruce Lee (Lee/Gendary, 2008), artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (Dictee: Bells Fall A Peal to Sky 2012), and performance artist and political activist Kathy Change (Chang(E), 2015). These cultural icons are connected not only by their performance practice, or by their deaths at young ages, but in performance Lee, Cha, and Change are also connected through Lee’s body, conjuring their legacy for us as present matter.
At MacDowell, she worked on completing the script of her latest autobiographical dance theatre work: GUT (굿), which marks the fifth and final chapter of her 20-year exploration of mortality within visionary AAPI lives. GUT (굿) brings together a stellar AAPI team, director Peter Kim, choreographer Sunny Min-Sook Hitt, and dramaturg Haruna Lee. The piece was first developed at Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor residency in 2023 and continued its journey at BAM's 2024 artist residency.
Portrait by Leyna Papach
