Clouds from a Crumbling Giant: our wild shining days
Shinichi Iova-Koga
inkBoat
“There is being. There is nonbeing.
There is a not yet beginning to be nonbeing.
There is a not yet beginning to be a not yet beginning to be nonbeing.
Suddenly there is nonbeing.”
~Chuang Tzu
Has there ever been a time when humans during their short stay on earth did not wonder, imagine, and even declare with certainty what happens after death? Some religions, some philosophies, and some writers/poets have even conceived the idea of a transition state between life as we know it and whatever occurs in the beyond.
Beginning in 2022 on the UC Davis campus, Shinichi Iova-Koga along with a host of collaborators began creating and performing a multidisciplinary combination of music, movement, voice, and theatrics in which bodies of those no longer living enter into a kind of waiting area before they transition to the next stage of their afterlife. Clouds from a Crumbling Giant has evolved since then through several, intriguing iterations on various stages and is now in its latest, absolutely mesmerizing premiere as over thirty talented members of Iova-Koga’s inkBoat present Clouds from a Crumbling Giant: our wild shining days — a production that is part of the 2026 San Francisco International Arts Festival, performed in the expansive space of ZSpace’s Steindler Stage.
Words on a page are not adequate to describe the surreal, wildly imaginative, and completely engrossing experience — both visual and aural — of inkBoat’s latest Clouds. Physical presence is a must and is my high recommendation. Much of what occurs is totally up to each audience member to interpret what meaning is given to what is seen and heard. Much of what follows are my own reactions which may or may not be either the creators’ intentions or the meanings given by other attendees. But in many ways, that is the beauty and power of our ninety-minute submersion into this world of souls and spirits.
Under a large moon that slowly moves across a darkened sky, beings dressed in loose white wrappings are ushered one by one into a large, marked circle by what appear to me as the guardians of this Middle World, each so-called guardian dressed similarly in uniform fashion and carrying long, wooden poles. One of the initial arrivals is led to the center of the immense circle, wrapped and struggling to come out of what appears to be like a cocoon of white silk. As she emerges, the woman spreads her arms like the wings of a butterfly, body flopping and face looking upward with triumph to the light of the moon. A second woman in white is led next to her; and the two begin a hypnotic, slow dance, each mirroring the other. All the while, mystical, almost otherworldly music floats through the air, with the two finally embracing. A voice is heard declaring, “It’s hard making choices what to let go of.”
Over time, the two will be joined by others being helped by the “guardians” to step over the chalk-drawn boundary of the circle. One woman in a yellow bandana and almost appearing as a seafarer takes center stage, forming with her hands a telescope and seemingly trying to discern where she is and/or where she is going. Eerie, mysterious, vocal music seems to evoke emotions felt somewhere deep inside — just one of many impressive intonements and songs we will hear from Pamela Z and Khatchadour Khatchadourian. The woman suddenly seems in agony and is carried by a “guardian” to a vocalist dressed all in blue whose music seems to calm and heal her. To her surprise, wrapped packets of cloth — all in different colors — land in the space around her. As she approaches each, she reacts with great drama many emotions: passion, silliness, desire, excitement, and more. In my mind, she is remembering/experiencing many of the emotions she once felt in life, maybe as a way of letting them go.
As more beings arrive, memories circle all about them. Often voices of both children and of older people are heard … glimpses it seems of things they once said or were said to them. A voice is heard to say as one goggled woman is alone in the circle,
“In the beginning … it’s all bright … like fresh cut green grass; I feel new like this body were the first one I’ve ever worn. Why do we always forget who we are … is it like this for everyone?”
Accompanying changing scenes of bodies slowly moving in concert, of others collapsing together into a tightly formed bundle, or of a young woman dancing with seemed joy only to be joined by an older one whom she runs to hug with deep feeling is music that seems to span the globe in sound and tradition (all composed by Dan Cantrell). Beside the two vocalists, five members of the oft-roaming band play a variety of instruments: a huge, ever-present drum (Suki O’Kane); a resounding saxophone (Jon Raskin); a delicate, calming harp (Maia Swarthout); the strums of a guitar and the distinct chords of a Japanese sho (Edward Shocker); the oboe-like Duduk (Khatchadour Khatchadourian); and the piano, joyful accordion, and haunting musical saw (Dan Cantrell). The wooden poles of the seven or so ‘guardians’ also create their own rhythms and song as several times they gather to serenade and to move in coordinated dance.
Memories that emerge are in many forms, with only for us to guess what they really mean. The wrapped bundles that fall from the sky become a wide variety of outfits temporarily donned by the gathered beings — costumes for a kind of other-world party that appear to be from various eras of the past century (costumes for the entire evening designed by Jubilith Moore, Bob Marsh, and cast members themselves). A memory of a night of karaoke in a Japanese bar becomes an opportunity for fun and a time for the wandering souls to stand in front of a projection screen and croon to their hearts’ desires.
Long benches designed by Dan Gottwald serve as principal set pieces that the ‘guardians’ periodically move to become columns for hiding, a runway for strutting, a shelter to hide, or a set of pews for the gathered beings as their stay in the ‘in-between’ seems to be nearing the end. As the vocalist in blue directs them row by row, voices rise in rolling harmonies of “Time, time, time” leading to the entire group singing Paul Simon’s “A Hazy Shade of Winter,” the lyrics appropriately reflecting on the transition from fall to winter.
Throughout the journeys of these souls, two other fantastical beings have served as silent, often frozen-in-place watch guards — one resembling what seems to be a Peruvian woman/bird and another like a white bird/being maybe of Asian origin. Walking ever-so-slowly all around and within the large circle from beginning to end has been a person in black hat and white Noh mask carrying a fan — a traditional, Noh theatre figure often representing deity and signifying a transition of identity, from reality into a a world of memory and spirit.
Unfortunately, only two more opportunities exist to experience this extraordinary, one-of-a-kind night of live theatre in which the realms of poetry, drama, music, and choreographed movement and dance intermingle seamlessly under the incredibly inventive direction of creator Shinichi Iova-Koga. Clouds from a Crumbling Giant: our wild shining days is a moving, thrilling, and thought-provoking premiere that will hopefully have long life on future stages in a world that presently so desperately needs to feel the hope, peace, and optimism engrained within it.
Rating: 5 E
PLEASE NOTE: The pictures in this review are from past “Clouds” productions and do not reflect the production described above.
Clouds from a Crumbling Giant: our wild shining days continues 8 p.m. May 2 and 3 p.m. May 3, 2026, in a ninety-minute (no intermission) production by inkBoat as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival, performed at ZSpace 450 Florida Street, San Francisco. Tickets are available at https://www.zspace.org/ or at https://www.sfiaf.org.
