The Lamenters is an outdoor, site-responsive performance in which five performers explore crying dances as a collective, embodied practice.
Through intimate and physical rituals, each performer unfolds their own lament – a personal dirge translated into movement, where the body becomes a resonant space for transformation. Crying is not presented as complaint or weakness, but as an opening: a shared space where vulnerability is witnessed, amplified and allowed to create new forms of connection.
Drawing on historical lament traditions, where song and ritual were used to express sorrow, longing, gratitude and care, The Lamenters revitalises the genre as a physical and sensory language that reaches beyond words. Here, tears become a connective force between the individual and the collective, activating a shared bodily resonance between performers and audience.
All artistic material is developed through the practice of singing laments. Voice work, movement, imagery and performer relationships emerge from a continuous negotiation between individual and collective experiences of change. The practice explores how we respond to transitions in life – both those we long for and those imposed upon us. As personal cries resonate within the group, grief reveals itself not as an individual condition, but as a shared response to the transformations that shape our lives.
The Lamenters is conceived for urban green spaces where natural processes and human-made structures coexist in dynamic negotiation. The performance seeks sites where vegetation grows alongside buildings, concrete, asphalt and other traces of urban development and where nature’s own agency gradually reclaims, transforms or infiltrates the infrastructures left behind by human activity. Each location functions as a living landscape that shapes the work’s aesthetic, dramaturgical and spatial expression, becoming an active collaborator in the performance. The work is situated in environments in close proximity to water – whether a coastline, lake, river or canal – where the presence of water serves as a recurring element within the performance’s dramaturgy and visual ecology.
These environments mirror the logic of crying itself: a force that is unpredictable, uncontrollable, and transformative, breaking through the structures that otherwise hold us together. Just as water carves new pathways through a landscape, crying insists on its own movement, crossing the boundaries between the private and the collective. Through the encounter of voices, bodies, and site, The Lamenters investigates crying as a force that simultaneously dissolves and connects, reminding us of our shared vulnerability and interdependence.
The audience is invited to encounter the performance on their own terms. Rather than being assigned a fixed position, spectators are free to move through the space, follow a particular performer, shift their attention between individual and collective actions, come close to moments of intimacy, or step back to gain an overview of the larger composition. In this way, each audience member constructs their own trajectory through the work, creating a unique experience of proximity, attention, and resonance.
The audience is not only a witness to the performance but also an essential part of its sonic architecture. Each audience member wears a small speaker around their neck. The voices and sounds produced by the performers are captured through microphones and transmitted through these individual speakers. As a result, the sound is carried by the audience themselves, dispersing throughout the landscape via their collective presence.
This creates a subtle but significant shift in the relationship between performer and spectator. Fragile, intimate sounds that originate in individual bodies are amplified and distributed across the group, transforming private expression into a shared experience. The audience becomes a living chorus and a moving sound system, physically carrying the voices of the performers and helping to make audible what might otherwise remain isolated or unheard. Through this act of collective transmission, the work explores how emotions circulate between bodies and how individual experiences can become communal without losing their vulnerability.
The Lamenters is aimed at audiences aged 16 and above with an interest in contemporary performance, site-specific work and embodied experience. The outdoor format opens the work beyond traditional theatre audiences – inviting local communities and curious passers-by alongside established performing arts audiences. The piece requires no prior knowledge of dance or performance; its emotional and physical language is designed to activate recognition across a broad and diverse public. The work will resonate particularly with audiences drawn to questions of grief, care, collective witnessing, tragic humour and subtle forms of resistance.
The Lamenters is a poetic and political ensemble work about witnessing one another in tears – and about the potential for change that emerges when we allow what is breaking through to be seen, shared, and carried together.
Artistic Team:
Concept and choreography: Antoinette Helbing
Performers: Max Wallmeier, Tomáš Janypka, Beck Heiberg, Sigrid Stigsdatter Mattiasen & Antoinette Helbing
Lament-coach: Tuomas Rounakari
Composer: Emil Vodder Kristensen
Costume Inbal Lieblich
Dramaturge: Mirko Guido
Production: Lenka Vořechovská
Artistic Consultant Intern: Tilda Lärke
Production Intern: Miranda Riviere
Supported by
The Danish Arts Council, Augustinus Fonden, Knud Højgaards Fonden, Louis Hansen Fonden, København Kommunes Scenekunstudvalg, Kongens Enghave Lokaludvalg
Co-Production Partners
Sydhavn Teater, Metropolis, PASSAGE Festival,
Performances
4.-6. September 2026 at Karens Minde Aksen presented by Sydhavn Teater