Denna artikel diskuterar genus och kön i nycirkus och särskilt hur cirkuskroppen tar oss rakt in i lejonkulan när det gäller diskusisonen om genus och kön. Diskussionen sker genom nedslag i konkreta situationer. fragment av berättelser om konfrontationen med kroppen i cirkus som praktik, samt fiktiva möten med Professor Challenger - en gestalt Gilles Deleuze's och Félix Guattari's verk Mille Plateaux. 

When we speak of practice-led research, we tend to mean research combined with professional artistic practice. At the same time, we increasingly try to emphasise and make visible less institutionalised artistic practices. But can we engage in activities like amateur practices in the name of research? This article is the tale of a researcher who ventures among performance gymnasts, and a discussion of the questions that arise from participation in non-scenic performance practices. 

Dette kapitel er et spil, hvor flere eventyrlige væsner mødes omkring tilfældighed og bevægelse. Der er koreografen Merce Cunningham, hans samarbejdspartner musiker og komponist John Cage, den franske filosof Gilles Deleuze, og den engelske forfatter Lewis Caroll. Kapitlet diskuterer ideer om tilfældighed og spil, og vi møder både pindsvin, flamingoer og andra levende, bevægelige væsner. Med alle brikkerne præsenteret kan spillet begynde.

The chapter traces the development of contemporary circus in Sweden in the period 1990 - 2010. The history of this development is explored through interviews with artists who participated in the contemporary circus environment.

In 1979, during and after the Islamic Revolution of Iran, a vast number of cinema and theatre halls were set on fire by extremist revolutionaries or closed forever. Consequently, many artists and workers were forced to give up their professions. The phenomenon in question can be considered an effort of the government to further change the country's cultural identity. One of the closed-down theatres was Tamashakhaneh Tehran, the country’s oldest modern theatre built in 1915. This particular theatre can be considered as a symbol of a hindered way of living. By revisiting the theatre, the film aims to draw attention to a suffocated social culture. Through patient observations and metaphoric statements, the filmmaker brings this omitted subject to the centre of attention.

Besides referencing history and factual events through the use of archive materials, the artist utilises poetic text and imagery to uncover the abstract memory of the building. The intention is to invite the audience to have an experience of decaying beauty and to witness something that has been silent for a long time gain expression again.

Scented Rooms narrates the story utilising a poetic and metaphoric language, revisiting the theatre’s interior architecture, and skims through archive materials and historical events. The film observes ruined objects that have remained in the building. The film shows original recordings from the past besides choreographed pieces. Choreographed re-enactments are filmed in a theatrical space in Stockholm, representing the actors who had been oppressed and banned from working. Additionally, leaning into interviews with people, past events are being reviewed.

The film avoids being merely descriptive and elevates factual references through its dedication to metaphoric language.

By using 35mm film which has expired, I aim to reach the abstract memory of the place. as the celluloid film on which the footage is captured has gone through a decay process, it can be considered an agent in the creation of image and in reaching the memory of the theatre thereof.

I have come to work with poetic documentary film through a phenomenological insight into the components of cinema, photography and literature. The imagery itself for me is a way of poetic expression.

As an artist who grew up in a culture melted with poetry and metaphoric expressions, I am trying to implement poetic elements to communicate in a social context.

In the making of the film poetic materiality is considered a social instrument. Historically in Iran, poetry is used as an expression when facing exhaustion or when overwhelmed by the system of power. The longing for the poetic depiction of a silent social culture has roots in both culturally sensitive and emotionally descriptive views on social history. 

For me as a young Iranian artist who grew up under the circumstances of the Islamic government, this particular theatre has always been a symbol of a hindered way of living. I witnessed how the power institution strives to change or destroy any kind of icon that refers to a specific social culture from the public space and changes the appearances of the city, media or even the language. 

In the film, separated elements enter into a readable context: a ground for emphasizing the quality of interpretation over the quality of reportage.

35mm celluloid film has an important role in the film as it will act as an agent to evoke the memory of the space and the era. It will give me the ability to go further than reproducing a copy of the objects but allows me to uncover what has been untold.

This research investigates whether, and how, students in a circus bachelor programme learned creativity during their studies, and how they use creativity in their profession. Twelve participants were interviewed, representing six different cohorts from the University of Dance and Circus (DOCH) in Stockholm, Sweden between 2008-2018 (now Stockholm University of the Arts). Constructivist grounded theory methodology (CGT) guided the analytical process of uncovering themes described by participants. Narrative vignettes were used to represent the experiences recounted by multiple participants influencing the apprenticeship of creativity and creative methods. Curriculum theory was used as a lens to understand the relationships between programmed content and the lived experiences which created the learning environment wherein these participants developed the knowledge to enter the circus field. With consideration of the individualized pressures of the realities of contemporary circus creation and performance, creativity is here theorized within a Western cultural perspective, where creative contributions are often seen through the lens of social innovation. Three themes emerged from the analysis. In “learning creativity,” participants describe learning an iterative method of the creative process with regard to the performance of their circus discipline. “Creative identity” collects definitions and beliefs about creativity. The “creative practices” theme includes participant descriptions of using the creative process in their profession to navigate challenges beyond disciplinary work, and when approaching problem identification and problem solving during the COVID pandemic. Together, these themes demonstrate that apprenticeship of domain-specific creative practices provides a methodological foundation for domain general creative approaches. I name this method of using domain-specific approaches to domain-general professional challenges in circus “applied circus creativity.” These findings have implications for circus education, and other arts programs, which aim to preparing professional artists

Youth circus opportunities are part of a global expansion in circus arts practices. Although defined with different nuances in different locations, Youth circus is generally accepted to include any youth participating in learning circus skills for non-professional reasons, including recreation, physical education, and social contexts. Anecdotes describing the transformative and beneficial effects of learning circus abound. Research indicates that the introduction of circus arts to a broad youth population has been shown to increase motor competence, motor confidence, physical literacy, self-determination, and encourage risk assessment. This chapter describes how research describing the benefits from participating in youth circus can be understood within the framework of risky play. When engaging in risky play, youth test their own physical and emotional limits in order to develop strategies that will benefit them when encountering future risks. The opportunity to participate in risky play enables youth to learn to trust themselves and develop awareness of their strengths and weaknesses. Learning circus offers a context for diverse, incremental, and individualized risk-taking, in environments where instructors and equipment provide risk-management. Looking at research results through the lens of risky play contributes to a description of youth circus as an enriching activity.

We, the three authors of this chapter, all come from professional careers in the circus arts. We also have a deep interest in and involvement with our academic domains, including physics, history, and education. We have found that combining circus arts with these traditionally academic subjects in academic institutions has motivated our students to engage with their own learning processes in unique ways. Through our discussions, we have identified three common ways in which students experience agency through the integration of circus practice and academic knowledges. First, students are able to build new knowledge from their domains of comfort into domains of discomfort. Second, combining embodied and academic knowledge expands student access to creative solutions, thereby expanding their knowledge horizons. Third, we notice that the collaboration inherent in the practice of circus arts enables community building, which, in turn, elicits the development of trust in new situations. We see each of these elements as foundational for social change. This chapter situates our findings in relation to theories of creativity that include quotidian, personal discoveries (Beghetto, 2010; Csikszentmihalyi,1997/2013; Sawyer, 2012) and theories of embodiment that show how the mind and body mutually inform and affect each other (Gallagher, 2006; Steinman,1995). We further contextualise our findings within the greater conversation of circus arts in education (Cadwell, 2018; Funk, 2018) and the long-term effects of learning arts on the development of other knowledges.

Introduction: After more than a decade monitoring physical education instruction in Brazilian elementary schools we noticed an exponential increase in circus activities in both curricular physical education (PE) and in after-school programs. The purpose of this study was to analyze the children's participation and gender preferences in circus activities, with regard to recent studies reporting substantial gender inequalities in Brazilian PE.

Method: A qualitative study, based on multiple-cases design, was conducted in two public and six private Brazilian elementary schools. Data collection consisted of 17 semi-structured interviews with PE teachers and school administrators and in situ observations totalizing more than 130 h. The data were analyzed using Content Analysis (thematic categories).

Results: Boys and girls showed high participation levels in both curricular and extracurricular PE circus activities. In grades 1–5, participant activity preference was not linked to gender in either curricular or extracurricular situations and overall physical engagement was high. Gender preferences between activities were identified in grades 6–12: girls for aerial activities (trapeze, silks) and boys for juggling activities. Teacher preferences played an important role in the process of linking activities to specific genders both through modeled behavior and gendered encouragement of participants.

Conclusion: Circus instruction engages children of all genders and is thereby an effective activity to counter low participation in PE for boys and, especially, girls. Although circus activities are not inherently gendered, gender preferences are cultivated by teachers through gendered behavior modeling (their activity preferences) and encouragement strategies (guiding students to activities based on gender), which is often observed in traditional PE school activities and sports.

My 30% seminar is divided in 7 chapters.

1. Labour of access

2. Restricted by law

3. Genealogical imagination

4. We are cyborgs

5. Plur1verse of genres

6. Disclosure

7. Future plans

I have been conducting a series of experiments that all relate to finding ways to re-enact and re-enable an experience of the past in the present and into the future; excavating methods to repeat fragments of history whose importance might not have been fully understood or acknowledged.

The seminar goes along the politics of access to the archive(s), artistic research strategies used, and the proposed ongoing works.

I will be discussing with Jyoti Mistry (Professor of Film, Photography and Literary Composition Unit at the HDK-Valand - Academy of Art and Design, Gothenburg).

"The story of Harris- An Allegory" is a short fictional story that has accompanied the performance "unfinished business" which premiered at MDT on 2. of May 2024. To use fiction in a research in the field of contemporary dance lies in an interest of making worlding and worldbuilding as a foundation to generate movement material. A choreographic project that asks how dance can create a (fictional) world that has emotional encounters for an audience to relate to without trying to lecture or simplifying the actual reality we are situated in.

A collage of a work-in-progress video diary about building an online tool for dramaturgy.

 This master thesis researches the possibility for the established musicals to reach via translanguaging to new audiences of underrepresented language groups. The essay focuses on the musical In the Heights and the Spanglish fenomenon. The tools given can be used as a tool for any cultural and group including activities. There are suggestions on how to handle the dramaturgy and how to elaborate the scripts without using translations and text machines on stage. It also reflects on what hurdles and difficulties you might find during the process. It touches the subject of cultural appropriation, stereotypes and how to avoid and deal with these matters in a respectful way.

 Avhandlingen belyser sentrale problemstillinger i Le Théâtre et son Double (1938), en samling essays, brev og manifester der Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) tar til orde for en radikal omveltning av europeisk teater, og samtidig fører en radikal kritikk mot europeisk tenkesett, kultur og menneskeforståelse. 

Jeg hevder at Artaud fører to forskjellige argumentasjonsrekker som må holdes atskilt om vi skal forstå hans kunstneriske og kritiske prosjekt. Der han på én side angriper psykologi, språk og rasjonalitet søker han på den annen side å etablere teater som selvstendig kunstform. Når disse to prosjektene leses under ett tas Artaud gjerne til inntekt for en metafysisk essensialisme, der teatret er ment å bryte gjennom språk og representasjon for å nå et grunnleggende virkelighetsnivå. Mot dette hevder jeg at Artauds kritiske og estetiske prosjekt er anti-essensialistisk. Dette via en kritisk lesning av Jacques Derridas ”Le théâtre de la cruauté et la clôture de la représentation” (1967). Der Derrida hevder at Artaud søker å overvinne repetisjonen som gjør det umulig å isolere mening som identitet, hevder jeg at Artaud søker å skape et teateruttrykk som kan anerkjenne repetisjon. 

Videre påpeker jeg hvordan Artauds bruk av metafysisk ladde begreper som ”krefter” kan forstås som retoriske strategier heller enn referanser til religiøs og esoterisk praksis. Ved konstant å peke på noe som overskrider dem, og slik ivareta deres potensialitet, søker Artaud å holde begreper, språk og kultur åpne for forhandling. Dermed inviterer han oss til å ta aktivt del i konstitueringen av virkeligheten, men han insisterer samtidig på at også mennesket er underlagt repetisjon; vi er ikke frie til å definere oss selv som vi vil. Dette vilkåret, som Artaud kaller grusomhet [la cruauté], står sentralt for hans kritikker så vel som hans teatersyn. Jeg diskuterer også Artauds begreper ”livet” [la vie] og ”det dobbelte” [le double] i lys av disse problemstillingene. 

The project of Art e miss is a moving practice and research, an embodied exploration of the wild woman archetype. The research is aiming to practice ways to mobilize one-female-self in situations of feeling restricted. It is about approaching ways of mobilizing oneself to act and transform situations and moments of friction.  On a personal level, it works with the question ‘How can I overcome situations in which I feel restricted? How can I transform those situations into situations that support me and my desires?’ On a political level, it is a feminist practice for imagining and proposing alternatives. It tries to empower the female to seek possible different responses against dominant ideas and structures of oppression.

For exploring this question within the field of dance and movement, the project of Art e miss uses imagination, playfulness, and modes of relating to generating mobility and movement. The project uses strict scores to generate the structure in which the performers can practice. In this structure, the performers practice spontaneously reacting at the moment through improvised dances and mobilizing themselves as a response to the restrictions of the task.

Things, spaces and people collaborate in order to create an immersive experience. This project investigates this collaboration in order to combine them for an embodied way of tell and perceive stories.  Can a immersive experience help to close the gap between information and the person, the event and the story?

In the following essay I am going to analyze the components that are part of the experience. I am interested in the connection between perception, memory, atmosphere and objects. Inquire how they are related and what they represent in order to tell stories with them. I try to question the way we perceive and expand the function of telling and receiving stories to the whole body and everything around us. With these new questions, create my project – Johan’s Room – and experiment with them, trying to connect the audience with the story.

I denna uppsats undersöker jag hur jag som operasångare kan nalkas skådespeleriet och sammanföra det med musikens och sångens uttrycksmedel.