Hwa Records ICA SF Performance

Performed after hosting two Hwa Records workshops on the weekend of April 21, 2022.

Performed by: Roger Kim, Saewon Oh, Kayla Tange & Caroline Yoo

Videographer: Yeon Park

MORE INFORMATION COMING SOON

Hwa Records is a team of Korean diasporic performance based artists and healers composed of Roger Kim, Saewon Oh, Kayla Tange, and Caroline Yoo. Hwa Records was conceived after Caroline Yoo was diagnosed with hwa-byung in 2020. Hwa-byung (fire sickness) is a Korean folk syndrome attributed to the suppression of anger where pent up emotions then manifest in the body.

This documented performance was originally a live 40 minute long performance at the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco on April 21, 2022. The Hwa Records team not only performs and purges individual and collective hwa, loosely translated to fire, rage, and/or pent-up emotion, but also creates rituals for our ancestors to feel at peace by honoring and sending off our historical traumas in the performance.

Hwa Records uses intimate workshops and experimental performance to create community space for diasporic Koreans to discuss and alleviate some of these pressures, and to create places to collectively process the ever-present, but only recently acknowledged racism directed towards Asians.

Performers: Roger Kim, Saewon Oh, Kayla Tange, Caroline Yoo

Videography: Yeon Park

Robot Gayageum Creation: Roger Kim & Andrew Sung-Taek Ingersoll

Sound Design/Composition: Roger Kim

Video Editing: Kayla Tange & Caroline Yoo