
Baby, I‘m
Sick Tonight
Dance / Performance
by Olivia Hyunsin Kim / ddanddarakim
From the perspective of a queer woman of color with chronic illness, Olivia Hyunsin Kim experiments with the format of stand-up comedy. In collaboration with other chronically ill artists, she is looking for forms of self-empowering humor.
Current discourses critical of capitalism often depict people with chronic illnesses in a romanticized or simplified way. They are read as resistant bodies that counteract capitalism – for example through different temporalities or failure of expected productivity – while aspects such as constant pain or the necessity of crip time, for example, are ignored.
Together with her team, Olivia Hyunsin Kim uses dance and narrative to counter stigmatization and prejudice against artists with invisible disabilities or people who are falsely read as healthy. The artists use the means of stand-up, pop and performance in a radically unruly and humorous way to connect the cultural history of hysteria, today‘s treatment of sick female queer people and the body images of the contemporary dance scene, among other things.
Credits
Choreography, performance: Olivia Hyunsin Kim
Costumes, stage design: Kristin Gerwien
Sound environment: Martyna Poznańska
Video, lighting: Jones Seitz
Technical direction: Gefährliche Arbeit
Dramaturgy: Marielle Schavan
Access consulting: Hyemi Jolee
Production management: Christo Schleiff
Set and production assistant: Luca Plaumann
Light foam object: Susana Alonso and Jones Seitz
Graphic design: Christian Cattelan
Hysterical choir: N.N., Jill B. Suffner
DGS interpretation in tandem: Eyk Kauly and Aniella Tiedje
Surtitles: Elena Polzer & Luca Plaumann
Thanks to: Yvonne Sembene, Hyemi Jolee, ehrliche arbeit – freies Kulturbüro, Elisabeth Enke, Isabel Gatzke, Naomi Boyce, Tanzhalle Wiesenburg, and the RED Residenzprogram at Tanzfabrik Berlin.
A production by Olivia Hyunsin Kim/ddanddarakim in co-production with Sophiensæle. Funded by the Capital Cultural Fund. Guest performance made possible by NPN guest performance funding for theater from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the state ministries of culture and the arts. Audio description, DGS interpretation, and subtitling funded by Aktion Mensch.