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Soso Daughters, representation of trauma and independent creative practice in contemporary Russian theatre

Abstract

This article explores the creative practice of an independent Russian theatre collective, Soso Daughters. The collective was founded in Moscow by theatre
director and playwright Zhenya Berkovich in 2018 and recently premiered their fourth production. The subjects of the productions the collective performs
often delve into girls’ and women’s lives and traumatic experiences that are constantly undermined, dismissed or ignored. Driven by the feminist ethic of
care, this article aims to situate Soso Daughters’ creative work in the context of scan-aesthetic across the Nordic and Baltic regions, and to turn scholars and
spectators’ attention to the issue of an independent theatre practice in Russia. The article is based on interviews with the collective’s director and scenographer as well as first-hand observations of their productions. The article further explores the possibility of representation of trauma and traumatic experience in The Rhyme, the collective’s first production, grounding the analysis in that the holistic approach to scenography.