Pando Forest

October 24th, 2025 at Ford Theatre

Inspired by the Pando aspen colony, the “Trembling Giant”, Pando Forest envisions a living body made of many bodies, all breathing through one root system. In this voice-and-movement work, the forest grieves as a chorus: each tree sensing the others’ sorrow, each one offering its own strength back into the network. Each “tree” becomes both an individual and a conduit, passing grief and resilience throughout the whole.

Composed by Sharon Chohi Kim for HEX, as a part of DIRECT ADDRESS: theater as discourse. It is a celebration of the First Amendment and an experiment in making art out of the present tense.

Produced by The Ford and Cornerstone Theatre Company

Performed by Molly Pease, Chloe Vaught, Saunder Choi, Fahad Siadat and James Hayden

Photos by Noé Montes

Then it segued into great keening and lamentation by the Hex singers. The remainder reminded me of Auguste Rodin’s “Gates of Hell”. It was a powerful montage of angst and suffering. Sapiens being social animals, it was heart-wrenching to see how each individual reached out for and then grabbed another in order to express their pain. — Brian Fretté in LA Dance Chronicle