Challa

Elephants Laugh

  • A close-up scene from <Challa>. White sand on the black floor forms wave-like ridges. Swept tracks and scattered grains overlap, alternating between dense and sparse patterns.
  • A scene from <Challa>, seen from above. White sand spreads across the dark floor in wave-like patterns, and several people sweep it with yellow brooms to make marks. Participants in ordinary clothes are scattered across the stage.
  • A scene from <Challa>, seen from above. The stage is ringed by seating. A thin stream of sand falls from the ceiling at the centre, and people gather in a circle around it, sweeping the sand or watching. Audience members sit in the darkened seats.
  • A scene from <Challa>. At the right of the darkened stage, one person stands alone holding a yellow broom and looking down at their feet. White sand spreads across the floor in a large circle, and audience members sit in the darkness beyond.
  • A scene from <Challa>, seen from above. White sand is scattered outward from the centre of the stage as if it had burst, and several people stand around it holding yellow brooms.
  • A scene from <Challa>. White sand is drawn in a spiral across the black floor. Several people stand around it sweeping with long-handled yellow brooms; only their legs, hands and brooms are visible in the frame.

ⓒ Kristine Zipfel

  • Director Jinyeob Lee
  • Genre Multidisciplinary
  • Date 10.17.Sat 6pm 10.18.Sun 2pm, 6pm
  • Accessibility Non-verbal
  • Supported by Arts Council Korea
  • Rating 14 and over
  • Venue National Theater of Korea Haeoreum Grand Theater
  • Duration 60 min.
  • Tickets 40,000 won

 

Delicate sensory communication and connection with strangers amid shifting, vanishing sand.

Introduction

<Challa> is a participatory performance in which audience members engage in silent conversations with strangers through sand. How much slips past us in the fleeting moments of everyday life? The work creates a space in which participants can be fully present with a stranger and experience the delicate communication that emerges between them.

Inspired by the work of Danish artist Helle Hove, the performance begins with sand—a material in constant flux, free of prescribed form or judgment. The traces left by one audience member meet and mingle with those of another, transforming into unexpected forms before gradually disappearing. Through this process, participants experience a form of nonverbal communication that reaches beyond words and come to realize how different beings are intimately connected within a shared time and space.

An experience that can never be repeated—the shifting sand continually erases what has just been made, drawing participants wholly into an acute awareness of ‘here and now’. This singular journey, at once playful and meditative, offers an aesthetic experience of the fleeting moment, made all the more radiant, paradoxically, by the knowledge that it will soon vanish. Passing together through the moments when forms emerge and dissolve, audiences will come to rediscover the joy of creative play they had forgotten.

* This work is supported by the 2026 International Collaboration Support (Creation·Production) program of Arts Council Korea.

Director

Jinyeob Lee

Jinyeob Lee is a director who uses performance as a platform to arrange dramatic encounters between strangers and imagine new possibilities for connection and community. As head of Elephants Laugh, she creates works that dismantle the boundaries of the stage, with community, site specificity, and audience participation at the heart of her practice.

Moving beyond the written text, she explores the full range of human perception, continuing to create works that are shaped collaboratively with audiences themselves. Her major works include <Bodies in the Dark>(2015), <MULJIL>(2018), <Unseen Turmoil>(2022), <Beyond Diverse Dimensions>(2023), and <Between the Glances: A Symphony of the Unsaid>(2024).

Production

Elephants Laugh

Elephants Laugh creates work that connects everyday life and art, centered on audience participation, site specificity, and human relationships. Beginning with the unique stories of places and communities, it creates performances in which strangers encounter one another and connect, inviting audiences to discover new relationships and worlds. It also works with diverse communities, such as people with visual impairments, refugees, and older adults, sustaining an artistic practice that expands the senses and explores what community means today.

Credits
  • DirectorJinyeob Lee
  • Co-DirectorHelle Hove
  • Performance DesignerSam Trubridge
  • PerformerHyunsung Seo, Batol Abdolla
  • Sound DesignerMinkyung Oro
  • Lighting DesignerHayoung Jeong
  • Sand Drop Mechanism Design and FabricationSam Johnstone, YooCrew Ltd
  • Sand Drop Mechanism DevelopmentMarineboy (Sunghyung Lee)
  • Stage DirectorSungdeok Kim
  • Development ProducerHoyeon Lee
  • ProducerBongmin Choi
Elephants Laugh

Elephants Laugh creates work that connects everyday life and art, centered on audience participation, site specificity, and human relationships. Beginning with the unique stories of places and communities, it creates performances in which strangers encounter one another and connect, inviting audiences to discover new relationships and worlds. It also works with diverse communities, such as people with visual impairments, refugees, and older adults, sustaining an artistic practice that expands the senses and explores what community means today.