Artistic Direction, Concept, Choreography: Grace Euna Kim
Performers (main): Sergio Guerra Abril, Pauli Caldirola, Nicola Campanelli, Katherine Rojas Contreras, Simona Dervishi, Cecilia Feng, Dmytro Grynov, Alexandra Hanisch, Amr Karkout, Tomoya Kawamura, Lea Piontek, Manoela Rangel, Gina Osuna Sanchez, Giulia Machado Rossi,Tsz Chung Shiu
Performers (supporting): Denis Esakov, Hoang Tran Hieu Hanh, Mandy Lan, Stefanie Schairer, Nine Yamamoto, Parkomplex Collective (Dewen/Joshua)
Production Management: Marenka Krasomil
Production and Dramaturgic Assistance: Vicky Kouvaraki, Patrycja Maslowska
Lighting: Andreas Tiedemann
Guerilla Video Projection: Gabriel Vallecillo Márquez
Hidden Camera: Anna Ilin, Philip Treschan, Valentin Wedde
Special Thanks: Philip Horst, Ioanna Polydorou, Jakob Wolski, Visar Morina, Nora Amin, Daphne Rüde
Production Cooperation: ZK/U - Center for Art and Urbanistics Berlin
Funding: NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK STEPPING OUT, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the framework of the initiative NEUSTART KULTUR. Assistance Program for Dance. Co-funded by the Gwärtler Stiftung.


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Have you ever felt that things are so fucked up that you don’t know whether to laugh or cry? Such moments of crisis often lead to failures of language, through which projections of fear, denial, negation, and antagonism are triggered and empowered. From sunset into night,  “Unspeakable Community” explores such collapses in meaning and their potential for individual and collective worldmaking. 

The primal impulse of the laughter is the driving force of the choreographic language, which challenges the ideological codes of dance, and is spelled as a unique narrative statement in each of the 15 dance performers. Laughter is universally resonant and infectious, but at the same time highly subjective, complex, and can be interpreted in infinite ways—especially without verbal cues. As a laughing and crying dramaturgy, the work raises questions about how we give meaning to things, and the fragility in how individual perceptions negotiate common realities. In this way, the performance invites pluralities of ‘truth’ and being to thrive, coexist, and form the pulse of a dissonant community. By unpacking what is hidden behind the constructs of meaning, “Unspeakable Community” thus explores the transgressive potential of immersive social choreography, as a means to invoke a transparent intimacy among strangers, and test novel ways of being together.

For further context, HERE is an interview with Grace Euna Kim by Amelie Jakubek for Arts of the Working Class.

The performance is documented at a distance with hidden cameras, and therefore the images don't reflect the immersive world of "Unspeakable Community" and the perceptual and choreographic approaches that are central to it. Written feedback has been gathered from audience whenever possible, and are essential documents of the work. A selection is below:


Gabrielle Mambrini, Review in ‘Campadidanza’ dance magazine
“Unspeakable Community is an interesting and original call to live an absurd and surreal moment of madness and freedom. It’s very praiseworthy the courage of the KoreanAmerican choreographer to offer an intense and unexpected experience that is out of the scheme and that has a deep and healing effect.”


Christin Eckart, Theatermaker & Cultural Worker
“This was the most violent, groundshaking experience that I’ve had in the performing arts in a very long time. A highly important nightmare. Relationships of power and oppression are evoked, space is seized, bodies are touched, readings of a multitude of binary power relations - from gender to colonization - open up without being mutually exclusive. It is a school of affects, a descent of emotions and their interrogation. How long can one look? How long can one look away? What to do with the powerlessness of the bystanders, with a motionless empathy, the revolt of the silent? And where may the border of art be drawn; where in the agreed space of the performance may impulses be rejected or: How important is it to take a stand as a spectator, also in the artistic space?
          Unexpectedly and surprisingly, laughter erupts. Some bystanders become a vigil around the weeper, where no one can find a voice to stop the unbelievable. No end, no word comes, but an action that deeply impresses: a woman approaches the weeper, with courageous gesture, in touching simplicity, with a handkerchief. She wipes the tears and saliva from her face, and the scene is of a mythical quality that releases a shock wave in the bystanders. The woman embraces the weeper, long, the embrace is returned, and finally breaks away. I am shaken, by the gentleness of the scene, and even more by the judgment that lies within it. I struggle for action. I decide that presence matters. How does one overcome the empathy of the do-gooder, the morality without courage?
          At some point the laughing people suddenly freeze and turn silent - petrified sculptures stand between the trees and the spectators. The end comes from nowhere, perhaps from a greater shock that eventually catches up with even the most obscene. The silence leaves a vacuum, a gaping perplexity. The crying ends, but the shock at what has been experienced, what has been witnessed, continues.”


Stefani Schairer
“Wow, the laugh dance was so impressive. I thought for a moment everyone was totally freaking out. It got more and more absurd. I was attentive and totally inside the “maelstrom”. Why do emotions sometimes make you feel more solidarity or less solidarity? When is the right time to get involved? Why should I get involved? The silence afterwards was magical. It seemed the space was now filled with silence, connection, and peace. I thought, how long will we be able to hold this energy? Then something “unspeakable” appeared. It seemed to create a space to play and try things out.”


Sean Robinson
“The crowd watches and the sense is that this is a performance but it is also really happening because no one can weep for an hour without weeping for an hour. The people around the crying woman seem to see themselves as protecting her from the first laughing man. I watch how people watch - how removed are they? But the mad laughter it is still laughter and as he moves through groups of people they may smile, some of them, and some even let out a little laugh. Then a woman unexpectedly lets out a huge laugh and the space somehow relaxes and becomes tense at once - we are allowed to laugh are we?! But what about this crying person - how can we betray her? Who is going to abandon her next and join in with the laughter? We become a little suspicious of one another.
          A woman’s laughter in the space makes it less oppressive in some ways - no longer this sense of masculine energy attacking the feminine energy that somehow stands for all of our sorrow that we are not allowed to feel — Maybe this laughter is not just oppressive but also … joyful? It is getting darker and the laughter is all around and the conflict of energy is intense. When the laughers eventually stop, melt... A man wants to give applause and claps loudly but no one else claps - they ignore this loud man who wants the reassurance of ‘an ending’ - another man who cannot do messy female sorrow. But then, another smattering of applause…oh this is funny? More attempts to clap but no - we already tried that! No more applause. But it never really ends. I walk away and come back and there is a fire and figs on a string (no more potatoes) and the laughers and woman are with us…When did it finish? It didn’t, and the rest of the evening is given a sense of happening because maybe the performance is still going on.
          A few days later lying on the grass with a friend and singing… I remember the performance.. and I invite some tears…and they come…they really come… like they were waiting all the time…and this friend asks if I want to talk about anything …and I talk and cry about things I haven’t done for a long time…maybe ever.”