Nordic Theatre Studies

Performativity and Transgression

2024-05-20T11:06:46+02:00

Sexuality and the Transgression of Gaze in the Theatre

2024-05-20T12:00:24+02:00

In the twenty-first century, the most common cases of transgression in theatre are related either to breaking certain religious or social norms, particularly when combined with indecent language and exposure of the body. Nevertheless, this article investigates something as essential as viewing relying on the notion “gaze” and “soft transgression” (Patrice Pavis).
First, the article explores different theoretical approaches to viewing, especially the ones relevant in the context of performing arts and gender identity, and highlights some phenomenological aspects of bidirectional theatrical gaze. A theoretical framework is constructed for the analysis of a production, which dealt predominantly with female representations and which was interpreted as transgressive – 72 Days (2022, Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre) by Ene-Liis Semper, Tiit Ojasoo and Giacomo Veronesi. The analysis is divided into three parts: transgression of gaze, transgression by mouth and sexualizing gaze. The main conclusions of the analysis are supported by a comparable example from Lithuania – Sleepers (2021, Lithuanian National Drama Theatre) by Oskaras Koršunovas.
Based on the case studies, one can conclude that in the current regime of new sensitivities, critical audiences have become more sensitive about artistically unjustified exposure of naked or sexualized bodies on stage. With the notion “new sensitivities” I refer to a trend in the twenty-first century where receivers find certain representational traditions unacceptable, which has led to different forms of censorship.

Icebreakers

2024-05-20T13:06:46+02:00

The Singing Revolution which led to the restoration of Estonian independence in 1991, was accompanied by a cultural ‘sexual revolution’. After the cessation of theatre censorship in 1988, cultural influences in repertoire shifted from East to West, allowing for the exploration of once-taboo subjects like gender and sexuality. This fostered modern queer theatre, that embraces LGBTQ+ themes, characters, and aesthetics. Estonian queer theatre quickly evolved from portraying dandy figures and gay heroes to transgender and drag characters. It embraced various styles from psychological realism to documentary, devised, and physical theatre.
This paper explores queer elements within Estonian theatre, set against the backdrop of Western queer theatre history. It focuses on the last decades, examining how queer theatre functioned as a litmus test of democracy and challenged post-Soviet norms from a cultural research perspective. Grounded in basic research of stage messages and media reception, it reflects societal attitudes and the trauma of social change. Throughout the history of Estonian theatre, queer themes have appeared in over a hundred productions, resonating in more than five hundred reviews and attracting an estimated one million theatre visits in a country of 1.3 million. This article marks the first mapping of Estonian queer theatre.

Performative Protest Actions in the Baltic States Against Sexual Violence in Russia’s War in Ukraine

2024-05-20T13:17:46+02:00

In the article I consider women’s performative protest actions against sexual violence in Russia’s war against Ukraine and their media images. After the withdrawal of the Russian army from Kyiv, a massive amount of war crimes against civilians in its suburbs were revealed. The article gives an overview of the protest actions and their media afterlife in the Baltic states in spring 2022, discusses the representational strategies and media photos based on Rancière’s essay “The Intolerable Image”, considers the issue in the contexts of the public sphere, and the feminist research on women’s life stories and representational strategies that try to depict women’s experiences in war. The events are historically contextualized in a discussion on women and war based on the research of WWII memoirs and autobiographies (Kurvet-Käosaar 2000, Alexievich 2017, Paju 2005). The protest actions and their media images created a transgressive zone of disturbance where several modes of public sphere and social practices, including protest, art, media, mourning, etc. intertwine.

Essentially Contested

2024-05-20T13:34:39+02:00

In this article, I examine performative transgression in, and interwoven with, The Wastefulness Commission 2021 by Traavik.info. Launched by Morten Traavik in December 2019, the so-called hypertheatre project evolved into a big national theatre scandal during the process from the announcement to the realization of two stage performances in 2021 (Part 1 Vestland: 14 May at Ole Bull Scene in Bergen/Norway; Part 2 Viken: 22 June at Drammens Teater in Drammen/Norway), and beyond. The project caused heated conflict within the performing arts field in Norway that spread into the cultural public sphere where it is still virulent at the time of writing. In the article, I first present a theoretical framing concerning performativity and transgression bound to the question of efficacy of performances and the relation between theatre and the public sphere before I move to the case. In the reading of the case, I apply a multiscale-approach, combining micro- and macro-perspectives. I examine how Traavik activates and performatively reconfigures pre-existing cultural and political controversies concerning the experimental performing arts in Norway. Further, I discuss the scandalizing dynamics through the perspective of performative transgression and account for how the question of framing and contextualization is part of the contentious cultural processes. Finally, I focus on one of the stage performances and the performative practice of re-enactment.

Performative Representation of “Others” in the Opera Genre

2024-05-20T14:05:52+02:00

Western opera has a longstanding tradition (from Giovanni Battista Pergolesi to Astor Piazzolla) of the representation of the lower strata of society, which usually involves appropriation of the performativity of social groups other than the composer’s own. Such procedure is made for transgressive aims in order to affect the status quo of public discourse and improve social reality. The aim of the research presented in this article is to empirically establish whether the performative representation of a socially vulnerable group in opera affects and empowers individuals belonging to the group. A case in point is a contemporary opera Have A Good Day! (2011) by Lithuanian authors Lina Lapelytė, Vaiva Grainytė, and Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, which represents the professional activities of supermarket cashiers. The article presents the results of empirical research on the reception of the opera. The research was undertaken by showing the opera to participants who actually work as cashiers. Consequently, the participants were interviewed, and a qualitative content analysis of the gathered data was conducted. The argument of the article is based on theoretical insights on empowerment by Grant Kester, who suggests that artists, in an attempt to empower, might still be exercising unequal power relations. Thus, the real transgression might never take place. The argument of this article is that Have a Good Day! attempts to, but fails to empower its subjects.

Opera-film Baņuta

2024-05-20T14:53:29+02:00

The opera-film Baņuta (2021) is a contemporary art project based on the Latvian national opera Baņuta (1920, music by Alfrēds Kalniņš, libretto by Artūrs Krūmiņš) that has not been staged since 1999. The film was made under the restrictions of Covid-19 that impeded the production of an interactive contemporary music theatre performance in presence. The project was implemented by an international team led by Latvian dramaturg Evarts Melnalksnis and German stage director Franziska Kronfoth.
In terms of approach to the source (score and libretto), content- and form-wise, the opera-film Baņuta is somewhat transgressive and offers a new aesthetic regime to a well-known example of so-called national classics. Using deconstruction strategies, the authors of the film replace representation with performativity, include the discourse of opera’s performing history and contexts in the film narrative, and thus extend the relevance of the following topics: women in war, violence, otherness, and similarity. They introduce the contemporaneity in a performative artistic language and aesthetics, at the same time questioning the relevance of the opera genre in the context of the performing arts today. The article attempts to illustrate the challenges of the researchers facing the interart phenomena based on a particular case.

Polishing Reykjavík

2024-05-20T15:06:13+02:00

After noticing the great interest of the Polish migrants in Polish cultural events in Reykjavík, Ólafur Ásgeirsson saw a niche for his artistic explorations. He created PólíS, a theatre group comprised of Poles and Icelanders, professional and amateur actors. Polish actors to create performances aimed at the Polish minority. PólíS’s second production, Tu jest za drogo (It’s too expensive here), was staged at the Reykjavík City Theatre, a prestigious location for Reykjavík’s cultural life in 2022. This move transgressed social and political boundaries, perhaps even challenging the city’s cultural life and beliefs about the immigrant’s place in the fabric of the city.
In my article, firstly, I position Tu jest za drogo among other strategies for staging performances in foreign languages. Secondly, I place it in a transmigrant context (Glick Schiller 1995), which studies embeddedness in two or more cultures, to explain to whom and why the PólíS’ strategy might appeal. Thirdly, I refer to the concept of third space in theatre (Woodson 2015) to explain the power relations in the creation and reception processes.
My material comes from semi-structured interviews with the PólíS’ members and a City Theatre representative, as well as qualitative analysis of the social media texts and analysis of the PólíS’ play Tu jest za drogo.

Performances that Disappeared

2024-05-20T15:11:28+02:00

The article explores the alternative theatre and performance culture of the late 1980s in Latvia focusing on two independent companies that were established in 1987, namely The Experimental Theatre Studio led by theatre director Ilmārs Elerts and The Theatre Studio No. 8 uniting young theatre makers who refused to join the dominant state-funded repertory theatres. Both companies existed only for a few years and their activities and impact on Latvian theatre have not been properly researched until now. The article suggests negotiating the inherited strict binary division in research between professional and non-professional or semi-professional theatre, as well as official and underground culture in case of artistically innovative practices and recognizing the rhizomatic nature of Latvian theatre processes. Both companies are remarkable because of their significantly different aesthetics from the mainstream Latvian theatre of the time. They could be regarded as performative transgressions in terms of both aesthetic choices and organizational models.

When Contextual Events Become Central to Fiction

2024-05-20T15:28:10+02:00

When the Finnish Winter War erupted at the end of November 1939, it caused consternation beyond the borders of Finland; after all, mighty U.S.S.R had just attacked a small independent neighbouring country, justifying the aggression with securing its own domestic interests. I will be examining two contemporary Winter War plays and their genesis: Hagar Olsson’s Lumisota (Snowball War, 1939) depicts the threat of a fictitious war and the conflicting reactions to that threat – reactions that were put to the test during rehearsals when the prospect of war became imminent, mirroring events in the play. On the other hand, American Robert E. Sherwood set his play There Shall be No Night (1940) during the Finnish Winter War as it was being waged. The former play received a Finnish performance ban right before the Soviet attack as the portents of war reached fever pitch, and the latter initially received accolades and achieved success, but performances of the play were eventually halted when events in the European theatre of war took another turn, impacting US foreign policy.
The plays under analysis keenly exemplify drama’s firm connection with its surrounding realities. The pacificism of the playwrights themselves had to stand aside, or take on new forms, when a real war with all its political decision-making emerged from behind a fictitious story.

Theatre and Transgression

2024-05-29T20:32:48+02:00

I will discuss transgression and debated boundaries in performing arts in this article. I will be looking at a production of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Dirty Hands at the Finnish National Theatre in 1948 and discussing the political norms of transgression in theatre at an unstable moment in Finnish history. The production premiered on 8 October 1948 and was performed for two months only. On 5 December 1948, Finland received a note from the Soviet Union, the reason was hostile action towards the Soviet Union. After the note, Dirty Hands was performed no more. In Chris Jenks’s definition, transgression is “to go beyond the bounds or limits set by a commandment, the law or the convention.” It is a “conduct which breaks rules or exceeds boundaries.”(Jenks 2003, 2.)Transgression can be dangerous and challenge dominant hierarchies and authorities. What kind of a transgression took place in Dirty Hands? What strategies did the theatre and the artists participating in the production use to negotiate the transgression? Reading this performance through transgression, I argue that the theatre had a vital function in creating an understanding of the nation’s role in Finland after WWII.

Aesthetics of Presence: Philosophical and Practical Reconsiderations

2024-05-29T20:37:33+02:00