Unchilding (2019) is an experimental theater performance, conceived and facilitated by visual artist Joshua Kaufman and a team of creative collaborators, that explores the personal tragedy of lost innocence.
In a traditional theater space cloaked in near-darkness, the audience is immersed in two consecutive short stories that combine ambient soundscape and character dialogue.
The vignettes unravel as the stage is lit to reveal a sequence of visually rich, life-sized dioramas embodied by a sprawling ensemble of 26 performers.
Kaufman’s tableaux vivants occupy an uncanny space between stillness and suspension, displacement and embodiment.
Unchilding approaches the genre of tragedy as a realm of the unknowable and the withheld.