This conference paper discusses Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House as a part of women's liberation movement.
In the 2000s, Sweden has experienced a veritable explosion of feminist performing arts. Although feminist actions, theatre, shows and performance existed previously, feminist events with a distinct political and activist approach have emerged strongly in the current decade. Feminist culture festivals are held in rapid succession, and feminist performance, dance and theatre occasionally attract broader audiences. This popularization of feminist performing arts is related to the lively feminist activism in Sweden, but also to other social movements and community art projects openly criticising the right-wing political practices and promoting alternatives. In this paper, I will discuss a few examples of feminist activist performance in Sweden today.Current issues such as the decline of the Swedish welfare state, the aggressive neoliberal policies and its consequences, the US invasion of Iraq, globalisation, trafficking and so on, have led to a new collective political mobilisation and to new political coalitions where feminists and queer activists work together with the Swedish antiracist movement. To examine inequality in the vast field of race-related, class-based and sexuality-orientated gender and performance studies is linked to the intersectional perspective that has in recent years become a debated and, at least in theory, popular concept in Sweden. This paper connects this theoretical concept with politics and performance in contemporary Sweden.
In the 2000s, Sweden experienced a veritable explosion of feminist performance. Although feminist actions, theatre, shows and performance existed previously, feminist events with a distinct performance approach have emerged strongly in the current decade. Feminist culture festivals are held in rapid succession, and feminist performance, dance and theatre occasionally attract broader audiences. This popularization of feminist performing arts is related to the lively feminist activism in Sweden. In this paper, I will discuss a few examples of contemporary feminist performance in Sweden. Both thematically and in activist terms, contemporary Swedish feminist performing arts represent continuity in feminist politics and performance. They focus on direct action, mixing styles and genres in performance-inspired events, but also utilizing the more text-based traditions of theatre when required. It is unequivocal, however, that performance as a genre has had a strong impact on contemporary feminist theatre in Sweden. At feminist events feminist defense is mixed with spoken word poetry, queer theatre, music, dance, circus and elements of popular culture with various impromptu pranks and tricks thrown in. Performance is a hard-to-define live act that is a form of performing art but not necessarily linked to the skills or traditions of the stage. As a genre, performance is effective for fast, improvised and spectacular appearances, and is rooted in the early modernist events, 1960s happenings and other multi-disciplinary art forms. Performance is not necessarily tied to the skills or traditions of theatrical art. Performance is a tumbling place for encounters between political activism, autobiography, mass-culture, ritual body art and the “ordinary” commonplace. One significant trait is the multiple voices, the lack of hierarchic components in the performance. Instead, performance strives to attain simultaneousness, a concurrent effect that the audience is free to structure and evaluate for itself.
This book chapter discusses gender and sexuality in contemporary Scandinavian stagings of Henrik Ibsen's plays, with a special focus on the characters Nora (The Doll's House) and Hedda (Hedda Gabler).
This article argues against heterosexism in Swedish gender equality politics.
Review of Carina Burman's K.J.: En biografi över Klara Johanson (Albert Bonniers förlag, 2007) and Boel Westin's Tove Jansson: ord, bild och liv (Albert Bonniers förlag, 2007).
In the winter of 2004, the Israeli ambassador to Sweden shut down and vandalized Dror and Gunilla Sköld Feiler's outdoor installation Snow White and the Madness of Truth at the Swedish History Museum, making it one of the most talked-about art installations in the world. This book chapter discusses art and political conflicts.
This is an article on the Swedish author Kerstin Thorvall.
This chapter discusses the term solidarity in relation to knowledge, and the existing tension between a vital women’s movement on the one hand, and a feminist academic theory on the other. The raise of a highly capitalist and neoliberal notion of feminism, a sort of “free market feminism” is restricting and limiting the space for solidarity in feminist politics and theory. Jodi Dean’s term reflexive solidarity defines solidarity in terms of mutuality, responsibility and a need of recognizing common interests as the presumption for communication and relations between different communities. She shifts focus from a general and interpellated oppression to collectives that have chosen to work and fight together. This paper argues that feminist, antiracist and queer communities create new and different knowledge through collective acts and activism. Political Scientist Jane Mansbridge calls this kind of knowledge street theory in contrast to theories produced within the academy. Street theory is created in and by communities. Sometimes these ideas are picked up by academic scholarship, rearticulated, redefined and often ending up meaning something else they once meant in their street period. It is problematic that historians who chronicle political movements rarely address parallel developments in academic writing, and academic theorists are none-too-consistent about acknowledging the influence of direct-action politics on their scholarship.
Regular column on theatre in the weekly newspaper Arbetaren (The Worker).
"Troublesome People" is a book on the Swedish feminist theater director Suzanne Osten.
This book is a study of the construction of gender and desire in trouser roles in both spoken theatre and opera.The long-term presence of cross-dressing in Western theatre history and its specific articulations in performanings arts have been an important part of the discourse in Gender Studies since the 1980's. The trouser role, a woman en travesti, literally in male drag, sings and looks like (in theory at least)a man, but sounds like and in fact, is, a woman. This act of cross-dressing makes same-sex desire visible and leads to a number of questions, which many have contemplated upon but few have cared (or dared) to answer.
This conference paper discusses trouser roles and gender trouble connected with them on stage.
”If You Want to see a star of Shame, Look at Zarah! Zarah Leander and Queer Diva Worship” is a research project funded by The Swedish Research Council. This project investigates the Swedish actress and singer Zarah Leander as a queer diva in the way the “phenomenon Leander” emerged in the 1950s and 1960s in Sweden, Germany and internationally. Leander’s dark voice, travestie-like persona and her schlager repertoire made her a major gay icon in the 1950s. The queer quality of Leander is to be found in her transgressive erotic representation of her vocal gender ambiguity, transformed in the gay male diva worship into counter-political resistance to “normalcy”. This project deals merely with the intersection of gender, sexuality and nation.
This book chapter discusses queer theory in relation to visual culture.
This book chapter deals with The New Gender Politics by Judith Butler.
This key note paper discusses heterosexuality, heteronormativity and exclusion by homophobia.
This book chapter discusses the heritage of August Strindberg in contemporary Swedish theater in the productions of Lars Norén and Ingrmar Bergman.
Recension av Lars Nylanders bok Den långa vägen hem. Lars Noréns författarskap från poesi till dramatik, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1997
This article discusses the heteronormative reception of the Swedish teen movie "Show Me Love" (1998). It is a love story between two teenage girls, but the reviews hardly mentioned the young lesbian love story.
The relationship between art and politics emerges again and again. In connection with the Russian parliamentary elections in December 2011 a protest movement appeared calling for free elections and democratic rights. It was in this context the punk group Pussy Riot conducted their now world famous “prayer” to Virgin Mary to dislodge Vladimir Putin from power. The question is whether this was an artistic action with a political purpose or a political action with an artistic method?
The present paper focuses on the links between the classical avant-garde and anarchism exemplified by the actions of the group Pussy Riot in Moscow. The term anarchy comes from the Greek arche and in its original meaning aims at neither to chaos nor order, but joins both elements. A constant movement between construction and deconstruction of established existing systems characterizes anarchism.
The classical avant-garde wished to integrate art and life. Art would be understood as a flow with no specific goals and no definite answers to the question “why”? Provocation was seen as an instrument for producing shocking effects using unexpected breaks in the flow of words, images or tones, and forcing the viewer to make new associations. The artists of the avant-garde were socially, rather than politically engaged. Unlike the politically organized revolutionaries they were anti-utopians, politically as well as aesthetically. They did not create a school or style, and did not let that art was under any social or political constraints.
This collection of essays investigates elements of the human voice and performance, and their implications for gender and sexuality. The chapters address affect, pleasure, and memory in the enjoyment of musical and theatrical performance. Rosenberg also examines contemporary feminist performance, anti-racist interventions, activist aesthetics, and political agency especially with regard to feminist and queer interpretations of opera and theatre. She contextualizes her work within broader developments in gender and queer studies, and within the feminist movement by highlighting important contributions of artists who draw from the above to create performance. The book will be welcomed by opera and theatre lovers, students, academics, and the wider public that is interested in the performing arts and its queer feminist potential.
Review of Patrich Hamm's bok Die Diva ist ein Mann. Das grosse Tuntenbuch (Berlin: Querverlag, 2007)
This book chapter is a feminist reading of Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin.
This book chapter is a feminist analysis of Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin.