Body as Land - Belonging
Oakland Museum of California June 21st 2026
For this Spotlight Sundays, we are excited to welcome back Dohee Lee and PURI Arts with their project Land as Body: Belonging, a powerful community ritual that interweaves ceremony, storytelling, and drumming. This spirited offering provides a ceremonial bridge for healing between ancestors and the people of all lands that have endured ruptures due to deportation, incarceration, and all forms of colonial violence.
In collaboration with Asian Refugees United-Connect-Reflect-Enact (ARU-CRE) and Asian Prisoner Support Committee (APSC) (including members inside and out of San Quentin Prison), Land as Body cultivates a collective of immigrants, refugees, and settlers on the indigenous lands of Turtle Island where they live and belong. Please join us for this potent expression of healing and connection.
Ritual for Chilseong: 칠성 새남굿 Chilseong SaenamGut
Nov 21,22, 2025 at Eside Cultural Center
A ritual for Chilseong-칠성신:Vitality, in order to bring back our chilseong, we need to confront our illness and destruction. This ritual's foundation is from Jeju Island, my hometown, because we need to confront the sick and to heal. This ritual is for facing and naming challenges, for purging destructive and monstrous spirits (Heomaengyee-허맹이 *) white supremacy, patriarchal culture in here and back to homeland and inviting vital spirits (Chilseong-칠성신 **) back to humanity and land.
We call upon the spirit of land and the ancestors who hold the umbilical cord of our birth and theirs, to bridge where we belong to this unceded Ohlone land where we all live with the Ohlone ancestors and their descendants.
Living in the U.S. as Asians in diaspora, we have faced many of the same challenges that our ancestors, grandparents, and parents faced. Even now, our generations are confronted with the same issues due to the systemic oppression of our vital life. We call out the causes of our sickness: white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism – all of which destroy the value of human life and earth, nature, and environment.
We are here to reclaim ancestral, and cultural identity, to connect with the land and correct history, to delve into cultural practice and our own diasporic identity – for healing. Especially for this site ritual, I call out the oppressors’ destruction of humanity and the white supremacy of our colonized land.
Performer: PURI Arts Ensemble, ARU CRE Cohorts 2025
Supported by Rainin New Program 2024, California Arts Council 2025, Stupski Foundation and Just City Fund
MU-When the land stands alone, 2023
MU-Connector/When the land stands alone performed at YBCA. Video by Rapt Productions "Chilseong" Vital life force that we are trying to bring her back into life which has been destroyed by Heomaengyee (Oppressed systemic sickness). we are bringing our own life back to live purposely which our ancestors sent our lives here. Concept and Direction: Dohee Lee Choreography and Stories: Dohee Lee and CRE members Music Composition: Adria Otte Costume Design: Dana Kawano, Soyeun Shin, Dohee Lee and CRE members CRE Cohorts/CoRazOn Performers: Frances Cachapero, laura ann coelho, Emily Encina, Sapho Flor, JaeEun Jun, Mi Kyong Kim, Inhui Moonstone Lee, Tiff Lin, Rebekah Sze-Tung Olstad, Sol Rhee, Katie Tao, Seh-reum Tom, Mơ (Trang) Trần, Dongyi Wu, Justine Xu MU Ritual and Drummers: Adria Otte, Codie Otte, Emily Encina, Eugene Kang, JaeEun Jun, Sol Rhee, Yong Chan Miller Somi: Mi Kyong Kim Ritual Facilitator: Dohee Lee
Chilseong Saenamgut: Ritual for Sickness
Chilseong SaenamGut (Duringut): Ritual for Sickness+When the land stands alone in Nov 18,19 and 20, 2022 “Chilseong Saenamgut,” a ritual for sickness, illness and destruction from Jeju Island, my hometown, because we need to confront the sick and to heal. This ritual is for facing and naming challenges, for purging destructive and monstrous spirits (Heomaengyee-허맹이 *) white supremacy, patriarchal culture in here and back to homeland and inviting vital spirits (Chilseong-칠성신 **) back to humanity and land. Ritual performance by Puri Arts, CoRazOn, Ieumsae MU Ritual drummers and ARU CRE Cohorts. at Eastside cultural center and West Berkeley Shellmound Sacred Site
Dohee transforms into 9 goddesses from past, present and future, transporting audiences on a mythological journey of ancestral legacies and indigenous resistance.
Born of old and new myth, the goddesses are guardians for the modern age. Each embodies ecological, political, economic and spiritual struggles and shines a light on how we may continue to the future. One example: Obangshinjang 5-Directional General goddess, who helps the community to confront the issues of immigrant and refugee equality, reconnecting cultural legacy from their own roots, and militarism.
MAGO is the creator goddess in ancient Korean mythology, central to the practice of mudang. The legend of Mago outlines this piece, which aims to express the interconnectedness of dreams and reality, past and present lives, karma and destiny, microcosm and macrocosm. Through an exploration of the myth of Mago and Dohee's own story, the piece unfolds in six chapters, revealing this interconnectedness and its implications in one’s life. The work itself is an intensely personal journey of birth, self-discovery, confrontation, action, and re-birth.
I am looking at the ocean from the far West Pacific out to my homeland: Jeju Island, South Korea. I am looking at this land where I live now – Oakland, California. Both of these places have similar cultures, beliefs and myths seeded by native peoples.
ARA is the goddess of tears. Her name has various meanings including “ocean” and“eye.” Her tears flow down and become rivers and oceans, they drift up and become stars shining in the Milky Way. Each tear memorializes a story, evoking sadness, love, desperation, and hope. I am inspired by the power of ancient myths.
