Circle of Life

Circle of Life began with the death of the dance teacher Soojin Pray had come to call her mother. Unable to make sense of the loss through words, Pray devised a personal action of mourning rather than reenacting a traditional rite. On open tidal ground at Su Seom, she marked a large circle and repeatedly moved through lying down, sitting, rising, walking, collapsing, and returning to the earth. These elementary bodily states compress the arc of a life without fixing a beginning or an end.

The performance continued as daylight faded. The changing light, exposed ground, and scale of the horizon are part of the work’s temporal structure, not a neutral backdrop. What began as an act addressed to one person gradually opens a question about mortality and continuity: how might a body approach death when language is no longer sufficient?

Originally filmed in 2020, the work was revisited in 2026 through a complete re-edit of its soundtrack by Soojin Pray. The current version brings together a Sujecheon recording and ambient sound captured during the shoot. This sound revision adds a second time to the film: the present artist listening anew to an earlier body and landscape. The footage also now bears an unintended record of change, since the landscape seen in the film has altered substantially since filming.

Circle of Life is an independent early performance film within Pray’s moving-image practice. It is not a reconstruction of a historical ceremony and is distinct from her later We, We Wish project.