Beyond the Breath
Single-channel 4K video · 03:24
2023
About the work
Beyond the Breath asks where the desire to hold one’s breath underwater comes from. Created alongside choreographer and performer Donna Kim’s performance of the same name, the film approaches the beauty and scale of nature through a body that becomes conscious of its own limits.
Parallel situations give the question different forms. A figure surrounded by water seems to have lost the desire to hold their breath, while shallow water makes that same desire frustratingly impossible to fulfil. The contrast moves between boredom and struggle, giving an existential question a cinematic structure through the relationship between scenes.
NOWNESS Asia · January 2024 Vessels: A Night of Dance Film · Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio · 16 August 2025
A collaboration with choreographer and performer Donna Kim.
Continuing the collaboration
Deep Breath — Echoes from the Abyss
Deep Breath continued the collaboration with choreographer Donna Kim after Beyond the Breath. Presented at Platform Theatre, Central Saint Martins, the performance brought the inquiry into breath into a live encounter with movement, endurance and the felt limits of the body. Song contributed film, photography and performance documentation.
The accompanying film places a solitary figure at the shoreline, relating the movement of water to the effort of breathing and holding breath. Developed with reference to Jeju’s haenyeo divers, the project approaches breath as a measure of both vulnerability and persistence: an action through which the desire to continue living becomes physically perceptible.
- Format
- Live performance and accompanying film
- Presented at
- Platform Theatre, Central Saint Martins, London · 10 April 2024
- Credits
- Creative direction & choreography · Donna Kim Film, photography & documentation · SungHoon Song Sound design & composition · Bryan Yueshen Wu Visual direction · Seong Kim Performers · Donna Kim, Fin Atkin, Harry Symington, Louie Thornton, Olivia Carpenter, Sadie Martin and Simone Martis