Futurity of the Womb: Myth of the Cyborg Kisaeng (2023-2025)

One Night Performance

August 30, 2025, 7:30-8:30PM, Kelly Strayhorn - Alloy Studios, Pittsburgh, pA

Created by C. Ryu, Kayla Tange, & Mudang Jenn Kim  

Directed by C. Ryu & Kayla Tange 

Written & Performed by Mudang Jenn Kim, C. Ryu & Kayla Tange 

Futurity of the Womb: Myth of the Cyborg Kisaeng is an experimental, 60-minute multimedia performance reimagining Korean history through the lens of feminist mythology. Blending ritual, burlesque, oral histories, and mythological storytelling, the piece unfolds in four immersive sections that interweave live performance, video projection, and audience interaction to create a multi-sensory experience.

Historically, kisaengs were enslaved Korean courtesans, forced to entertain those in power while mastering the arts. Futurity of the Womb is a time-traveling performance that redefines the kisaeng’s legacy beyond the constraints of history. The cyborg becomes a vessel for interrogating our  codependence with technology, power, and identity, reflecting on power beyond or manufactured by human limitations. Existing outside of linearity, and challenging colonial timeframes, Cyborg Kisaeng moves fluidly across past, present, and future, collapsing these boundaries of space and time to reclaim and rewrite our histories through four distinct perspectives. 

• Mudang Jenn Kim, a Korean-American shaman, invokes the first cosmic mother of Korea, MAGO,  who has been shamed for her larger-than-life power.

• Kayla Tange merges the figure of the kisaeng and the abandoned Princess Bari to explore grief and adoption as a portal—dwelling in the space between the living and the dead, the desired and discarded.

• C. Ryu reimagines the gumiho, a nine-tailed fox demon that consumed men’s livers and hearts to survive, as a cyborg—alchemizing complicit desire.

Drawing from speculative futurism, mythology, and embodied ritual, Futurity of the Womb offers not a single narrative, but a timeline rewritten—a feminist mythos where stories once censored, erased, or stigmatized emerge alive, electric, and here. Futurity of the Womb is an offering of a new timeline.  This is not a return to history—it is a reprogramming.

Thank you to our whole team who are the behind the scenes humans making sure our stories come alive.

Producer: C. Ryu
Stage Manager & Producer: Julia He

Scenic Designer: Ningning Yang
Scenic Technical Director: Ari Cobb
Lighting Designer : Ryan Yu
Media & Sound technician: Adam Davy 
Projection Design: C. Ryu & Kayla Tange
Photography: Brendan Lott & Peter Yang Zhao

Intro:
Kisaeng Video Footage Filming: Audrey Medrano
Mudang Jenn Kim Video Footage Filming: C. Ryu
Edited by C. Ryu & Kayla Tange
Sound Composition & Design by C. Ryu & Kayla Tange

Act 1: Mago
Drum Music: Sehwan Kim
Sound Design: C. Ryu
Text animation: C. Ryu

Act 2: Princess Bari
Track 1: Kayla Tange
Track 2: Ro Rowan
Track 3: Gareth Thomas
Smoke bra: Kevin Kane
Leaf blower stand: Jeff Davis
Intro video filming: Kevin Kane
Editing: Kayla Tange 

Act 3: Cyborg Gumiho
Clock Mirror Towers designed, conceptualized, and built by C. Ryu
Media Design filmed and edited: C. Ryu
Cattle Ultrasound Dance filming: Audrey Medrano
Sound Design: C. Ryu

Intro to Act 4:
Kisaeng Video Footage Filming: Audrey Medrano
Editing: Kayla Tange
Sound Design: C. Ryu

Act 4: Spiritual Fermenting
Red pepper fabrication & sewing: Aramis Richards
Clock Mirror Towers: C. Ryu

Sound Design: Roger Kim
Excerpt from Utdari Pungmul, performed by Kkiri Kkiri Samulnori
Jane Kang (kkwaenggwari)
Danna Kim (janggu)
Sarah Chung (buk)
Roger Kim (Jing and kkwaenggwari)
Utdari Pungmul is an arrangement of rhythms traditionally played by farmer's percussion bands in Korea.
Kkiri Kkiri Samulnori is a traditional Korean percussion group based in Oakland, CA.

**Futurity of the Womb is made possible by the Exposure Artists Program of The Pittsburgh Foundation, with additional support from Pedantic Arts Residency and Kelly Strayhorn Theater.