#157: Young-jun Tak

Friday, 13 February 2026, 24:00 | midnight—   add to calendar
BABYLON, big cinema hall, Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 30, Berlin
admission free and open to the public

Young-jun Tak’s choreography film series combines elements of video art and short experimental documentary.  The series is planned to consist of seven films in total, each titled after a day of the week: from the first Sunday to the second Thursday, the third Monday, and the latest fourth Friday.  Each film follows a similar structure, juxtaposing two contrasting conditions of belief. Within this framework, queer bodies and stories and choreography disrupt conventional boundaries, exposing both their apparent dissimilarity and their strangely convincing similarities. The dominance of heteronormativity in human history and architecture has shaped societal structures, forcing sexual minorities to adapt within these constraints. As a result, their sensitive bodies, movements, and feelings serve as an ideal lens through which to explore and interrogate these themes.

Young-jun Tak, who is present, shows:

WISH YOU A LOVELY SUNDAY, 2021, HD video, sound, 18:45 min
The first film in Tak’s choreography series, WISH YOU A LOVELY SUNDAY (2021), boldly juxtaposes two distinct spatial settings: a church and a queer club. Two choreographers and two dancers were paired to create original choreography tailored to the church “Kirche am Südstern” and the queer club “SchwuZ” in Berlin, respectively. Each pair worked with a different Bach piano piece for four hands. After days of rehearsals and the completion of their choreographies, the assigned venues were unexpectedly swapped. The participants were unaware of the exact location where they would perform until the day of filming. As a result, they had to adapt their choreographies to the unique architectural features and atmospheres of the new locations. 

Supported by Arts Council Korea, Burger Collection, Berlin Masters Foundation, and Center Stage

LOVE YOUR CLEAN FEET ON THURSDAY, 2023, 4K video, color, sound, 18:53 min
The second film in the choreography series, LOVE YOUR CLEAN FEET ON THURSDAY (2023), challenges the conventional hyper-binary notions of gender through queer male bodies and movements. It juxtaposes two contrasting representations: the hypermasculinity of Spanish Legion soldiers during their spectacular Maundy Thursday ritual, carrying a life-sized crucifix in Málaga during Holy Week, and the hyper-femininity revered in Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet Manon (1974), where male dancers repeatedly lift and carry the eponymous female protagonist in Act 2, Scene 1. Alternating between these two situations, the film follows six male dancers performing choreography inspired by the ballet scene in Berlin’s popular gay cruising forest, Grunewald. Their movements attempt to bridge the gap between these seemingly different yet strangely similar gender presentations. 

Supported by Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Burger Collection, Die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, and Kunstfond Stiftung 

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT ON MONDAY, 2024, 4K video, color, sound, 19:59 min – European premiere!
The third film, LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT ON MONDAY (2024), draws inspiration from Lars Mytting’s acclaimed romantic novel The Bell in the Lake (2019). Set in a remote Norwegian village in 1880, the novel tells a love triangle story involving a 19-year-old local girl, a newly assigned pastor, and a German architect. Their lives are intertwined with a legend about the Sister Bells of a medieval stave church and the sweeping modernization of the country. 

This film explores the series’ recurring core theme and the most powerful belief: love. It echoes the nature of legendary, mythological, and transcendent love stories passed down through generations, reimagined here in a choreographic context. Two late-teenage female dancers share their parents’ love stories through dance, performed in the Lom stave church in Norway to Edvard Grieg’s piano solo Wedding Day at Troldhaugen. The recorded dance at the church is then shown separately to two male dancers, each of whom develops their own choreography in response. On the day of filming, set inside a retired jumbo aircraft, the two male dancers present their choreographies to each other. A male choreographer on-site combines these into a pas de deux (or duet), accompanied by Grieg’s song The Sweetness of a First Meeting, sung by a countertenor. 

Co-produced by Lillian Løvseth, LØV Film. Supported by Norwegian Film Institute, Østnorsk filmsenter, and Burger Collection

LOVE WAS TAUGHT LAST FRIDAY, 2025, 4K video, color, sound, 20 minutes – European premiere!
The fourth film, LOVE WAS TAUGHT LAST FRIDAY (2025), explores intergenerational communication, reflecting on both the differences and similarities between generations. It highlights two rare professions in which teaching and learning relationships are respectfully passed down, regardless of age: traditional wood carving and contemporary dancing. 

In Bolzano, a father and son have shared the art of woodcarving for over thirty years. Their daily rhythm and gestures become the source of inspiration for a new choreography by Christopher House, former Artistic Director of Toronto Dance Theatre. Reuniting with his former students in Berlin after two decades, House develops the work at the historic Veterinary Anatomy Theater (Tieranatomisches Theater), the city’s oldest academic venue. The carvers’ rhythmic hand movements also inspire Andreas Sieling, organist of the Berlin Cathedral, in his choice and performance of the film’s musical score. 

Commissioned by Singapore Biennale 2025 and Taipei Biennial 2025 
Supported by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and Sunpride Foundation 

Young-jun Tak (born in 1989 in Seoul, South Korea) Lives and works in Berlin, Germany.