Melanie Jame Wolf spent two weeks in residency with Finite Jest, a solo performance about comedy, tragedy, and death. The piece draws on stand-up comedy to investigate how we struggle to deal with death or illness, whether as a society or within our personal relationships.

The Australian choreographer, who has lived in Berlin for 14 years, was in residency from the 4 to the 16 of November as part of FELD/LAB, an initiative supported by the Goethe-Institut in Portugal and in partnership with Coffeepaste. At the end of the residency, Melanie Jame also held an open rehearsal at Blackbox, using her personal experience to tell us a joke about how everyone dies. The question is: can we laugh about it? Together? In a theatre? Melanie Jame Wolf suspects that we need to.

Video by Carolina Lecoq