On/Crying – The gravity of tears

On/Crying – The Gravity of Tears is an ode to tears and the very act of crying. The work is both a performance and an installation, inviting the audience to spend time in the landscape of tears. Shaping a collective space of tears that embraces everything that comes before, during, and after the act of crying. The Crying Room is both the immersive scenography for the performance and is as an installation open to visitors outside of the performance times. The central question of the project is: What might a world look like that wholeheartedly embraces tears and crying? How does it affect our perception of each other and our surroundings if we allow ourselves to be in the realm of crying together? We are biologically programmed to cry and respond to crying. Although crying is our most basic form of communication, most of us unlearn how to cry in the presence of others, which makes crying one of our most private acts. The work imagines: What if crying was more social and essential in creating interpersonal connections? In times when it has become normal to skim the surface of emotions, could On/Crying invite through tears to dive into the broad spectrum of human emotions and to linger in their depths?

In On/Crying – The Gravity of Tears, two performers interact with the installation The Crying Room and activate its elements to amplify the power of their lamentation dances and songs. The performance is inspired by the rituals of professional mourners (grædekoner) and opens an associative space around the persona and landscape of tears. When mourners guide through a rite of passage, they use movement, gestures, voice and text to perform their collective cleansing ritual. By crying in our presence, they shamelessly allow us to witness the power and resonance of tears, inviting us into the intimate and universal landscape of crying. Pleasurably and generously they share the sensual and purifying flood of tears, aiming to change the witnesser's state of consciousness to accompany the transition into new situations when fundamental changes occur in life. She uses the voice of crying unfiltered and joyfully—normally an unacceptable behaviour in our society. By opening a collective space for surrendering they hold the space for renewal, becoming midwives for new collective beginnings and insights. They offer their tears as a gift to soften the space within and between us.

The two performers hold The Crying Room - the space of tears together; as professional mourners do. Collectively they release the tears of the present, past, future, their own, and others. They give their tears for the more-than-human life, which is being extensively exterminated and destroyed nowadays. Their crying becomes a rebellion against a silenced, paralyzed society amid crisis and war. In a time of growing collective fear, anxiety, and sorrow, we meet the two mourner figures who collaborate with and draw from the enormous energy for potential change found in homeless crying.

Installation The Crying Room is a sensual universe that affectionately portraits tears as glittering prisms - reflecting humanity translucent and vivid. It unfolds an interactive laboratory where the tangible connects with the poetic and the scientific with the imaginative. At first glance, the objects and expressions of the installation resemble the human tear system, which at a closer look reminds of the Earth's water cycles. It’s a flowing, dripping, and seeping universe of fluids in constant motion and connectedness, as an image for the inner life that spills over its boundaries—bursting, overflowing, and streaming into consciousness. Ice-sculptures melt, drip, and continuously change shape and quality. The micro-distillery of fluids becomes a sparkling metaphor for the ability of tears to release emotions, cleanse, and allow excess distillates to flow out. The installation’s elements give shape and weight to our perception of emotions by anchoring them in physicality and allowing the audience to feel connected to longings, desires, sorrow, fear, needs, and love—on both an individual and collective level. All elements are interconnected—light becomes images, images become ice, ice becomes water, and water becomes sound — bridging the tactile and the emotional. The audience can spread out across the installation—they can sit or lie down and are encouraged to find the most comfortable position on the installation's soft surface.

Working with crying, Helbing dives vertically into her practice, drawing on experiences from years of artistic research into the body, voice and landscape of laughter. Delving into the physicality of human expressions she expands her bandwidth with this work. Unlike her laughter works—where all movement is based on the physicality of laughter—here, it is the dance and its interaction with The Crying Room, with voice compositions, with light, costumes, and the audience that constitute the choreographic material. Dance, speaking the language of sensation, can communicate from the knowledge of tears that we all carry in our bodies. By using the voice as a vessel, On/Crying taps into the collective power of the human voice and its ability to connect us with ourselves, each other, and our living surroundings when we sense bodies as soundscapes full of sound, breath, and emotions. Because: In our society, we struggle with the stuckness of the river voice. The river of surrendering that holds the enjoyment and relief of crying.

Supported by
The Danish Arts Council, Nordisk Kulturfond Opstart, Wilhelm Demant Fonden, Augustinus Fonden, Wilhelm Hansen Fonden, Dansk Skuespillerforbund, Knud Højgaards Fond, Aage og Johanne Louis- Hansens Fond, Beckett-Fonden and Hoffmann og Husmans Fond.

Residencies
Akademiet KBH, Forsøgsstationen, Holstebro Dansekompagni, Dance Cooperative, Studio Alta Prag, Studio Tanca Banska Bystrica

Co-Production Partners
Metropolis, PASSAGE Festival, Sydhavn Teater

Performances
3.-5. September 2025 at Dansekapellet presented by Metropolis
May 2026 at Brønshøj Vandtårn presented by Metropolis

Dossier

On/Crying - The Gravity of Tears