Kim
Ongoing2023danceliteraturedocumentary theatre

"Kim" is a stage piece between dance, literature and film, based on the novel " Wo auch immer ihr seid" by Khuê Pham. Five dancers and the novel's author herself guide the audience through a touching panorama of life between two cultures and the legacy of the Vietnam War. They speak about people, love, home and war.

© by Stephan Floss
© by Stephan Floss
© by Stephan Floss
© by Stephan Floss
© by Stephan Floss
© by Stephan Floss
© by Stephan Floss
© by Stephan Floss
What a touching piece!
Anna Till, choreographer, Tanznetz Dresden
The dance-theater piece “Kim” was able to accomplish the monumental endeavor of recasting what we understand as “migration stories” into choreography that shepherded the audience through unfolding layers of fiction and reality. - Marque Pham, director
Marque Pham, director

The dance theatre piece "Kim" is based on the novel " Wo auch immer ihr seid" by the award-winning Berlin journalist Khuê Pham, who deals with the effects of the Vietnam War (or the "American War", as it is called in Vietnam) and the associated dispersion of her own family to several continents.

"Kim" stands for the neutral German name that the book's protagonist gives herself in order to avoid the constant questions about the pronunciation of her Vietnamese name and her "real" origins.

Against the backdrop of the book's story, the German-Taiwanese choreographer Fang Yun Lo, together with Khuê Pham and five dancers, all of whom have intercultural experience, explores the protracted search for identity among young people from immigrant families.

In a mixture of dance, literature and film, they ask questions that affect everyone: What has made me the person I am today? Who are our parents - and who am I? How do historical catastrophes and wars affect the lives of entire generations?

Hip-hop meets ballet and contemporary dance, documentary images merge with literary texts and the stage set is constantly changing. The dancers take on the roles of the book in turn, but also tell their own stories and those of their families, especially their parents. These stories condense many things into a compact form - they tell of people, love, home and war.

The result is a moving panorama - from the time before the war in Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s, through the connections with East as well as West Germany and the USA, to the most recent experiences in Ukraine, where families of Vietnamese descent are once again having to flee.

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