“You can't make a life out of not getting slapped in the face”

theatre, definitely

  • A scene from the performance. A figure in a white dress walks alone into the depths of a darkened stage, seen from behind. White feather trim edges the sleeves, and a short caption calling out a name and answering it floats in the darkness at the upper left.
  • A scene from the performance. On a dark stage, a figure holds up a white board covered in handwriting and looks at it. Words such as education, gender, religion, age, status, region of origin and country of origin are written on the board. The figure is seen from behind, wearing a garment trimmed with feathers.
  • A scene from the performance. Against a dark background, a figure wears a large glittering headdress and a deeply cut beaded costume. Light falls only on the face and upper body, revealing the ornate stage costume.
  • A scene from the performance. Two people sit side by side on stage. At the left, a person in a grey hoodie and cap laughs with a hand over their mouth; at the right, a figure in a red dress and pink feather boa holds a sheet of white paper and reads from it.
  • A scene from the performance. Captions run vertically at the left of the dark stage, describing a night of shared stories, a night of receiving tips, climbing a narrow staircase to a place no one could imagine. On a black platform at the right, a figure in white sits with legs outstretched, mirrored in the glossy floor.

ⓒ Hyejeong

  • Director Jahye Khoo
  • Genre Theater
  • Date 10.15.Thu 7:30pm 10.16.Fri 7:30pm
  • Accessibility Korean Subtitles, English Subtitles
  • Rating 7 and over
  • Venue Arko Arts Theater Small Hall
  • Duration 95 min.
  • Premiere Feminism Theatre Festival, Seoul
  • Tickets 40,000 won

 

A living archive of modern Korean and queer history—a radiant testimony of a first-generation transgender woman

Introduction

<“You Can't Make a Life Out of Not Getting Slapped in the Face”> is a performance based on the real life of Saekja, a first-generation transgender woman born in 1957, and the history of Korea’s queer community. Through her own testimony on stage, the performance traces the history of a body shaped by the forces of modern Korean history, such as the US military presence, military dictatorship, the sex industry, and the HIV/AIDS crisis. Through decades of violence, Saekja built both a life and a stage career, carrying experiences of loss layered with glory. Within the changing queer politics of East Asia in the 1990s, she continues to forge connections with younger generations.

Presented through humor, show, and personal testimony, the performance unfolds the many chapters of Saekja’s life—from running away from home in middle school, her time in the Pagoda Theater, a motel room in Donam-dong, Itaewon, and eventually on to Japan. Her body functions as a living archive of modern Korean history and queer history.

Blurring the boundary between stage and reality, the work moves beyond personal recollection to summon the past and the collective memory of survival. Through a body that has refused to disappear despite violence and stigma, the performance gives voice to the survival, solidarity, and history of Korea’s transgender community.

Director
Portrait of director Khoo Jahye. Against a grey background, wearing a grey cap and a white striped shirt, they look toward the camera.

Khoo Jahye

Khoo Jahye is a theater director, playwright, and head of the theater group ‘theatre, definitely’. With a focus on queer ontology and social disasters, she has persistently examined the question of deaths marginalized in both society and the arts.

For Khoo, making queer lives visible and reimagining accessibility are essential artistic practices for redefining the relationship between theater and the world. Khoo has written and directed <Buried Tongue>, <Grotowski Training>, and <Exi(s)t Strategy>, among others.

Production

theatre, definitely

The theater group ‘theatre, definitely’ focuses on social disasters, marginalized deaths in society and the arts, and queer lives. Using theater as a medium of resistance against censorship, hatred, discrimination, and exclusion, the group embraces the theatrical illusion that exists between stage and audience while exploring ways for language to extend beyond the stage into the world.

To that end, its works move fluidly between the registers of public discourse and deeply personal testimony. Rather than approaching urgent issues obliquely, the group speaks directly about the hatred, exclusion, and violence unfolding at this very moment—or acts within the very places and contexts where it occurs.

Credits
  • Written bySaekja, Khoo Jahye
  • Performed bySaekja
  • Directed & Prompted byKhoo Jahye
  • ProducerKim Jini
  • Dramaturgruin Sung Mean Pae
  • Stage ManagerLee Hyojin
  • ScenographyKimJu Seulki
  • SoundMorceauxx
  • OperationRyu Hye-young, KimJu Seulki
  • Choreography CoachingChoi Kisub
  • Sign Language InterpretationIraebom (Myung Hye Jin)
  • PhotographyHyejeong
  • Archival Videounionc
  • TranslationHoyoung Moon
theatre, definitely

The theater group ‘theatre, definitely’ focuses on social disasters, marginalized deaths in society and the arts, and queer lives. Using theater as a medium of resistance against censorship, hatred, discrimination, and exclusion, the group embraces the theatrical illusion that exists between stage and audience while exploring ways for language to extend beyond the stage into the world.

To that end, its works move fluidly between the registers of public discourse and deeply personal testimony. Rather than approaching urgent issues obliquely, the group speaks directly about the hatred, exclusion, and violence unfolding at this very moment—or acts within the very places and contexts where it occurs.

  • …shown performance that dismantles long-held definitions of the actor and of acting, forged through prejudice and all kinds of danger.
    — Jury Citation for ‘Saekja,’ Winner of the Special Prize, 62nd Dong-A Theater Awards, 2025
  • “God chose us”… words of comfort from a queer performer approaching seventy.
    — JTBC, 2025
  • This sexy dance, where turbulence and stillness, desire and embrace come together in a single body, gives the world its rhythm.
    — Yang Geunae, theater critic