Startpage Utopia and Performance

Sensuous Governing Sensuous City by Sisters Hope. Photo. Photo: Diana Lindhardt.

The panel will be chaired by Kim Skjoldager-Nielsen (Stockholm University, SE).

Sean Metzger (University of California, LA) “Seascapes and the Utopic Horizons of Performance Studie

Sean Metzger is Associate Dean for Faculty and Students and a professor in the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television. He has published Chinese Looks: Fashion, Performance Race (2014) and The Chinese Atlantic: Seascapes and the Theatricality of Globalization (2020) both with Indiana University Press. He has coedited six collections of essays and a volume of plays and authored more than 50 articles and reviews. He is the former president of Performance Studies international and the editor of Theatre Journal.

Conference Abstract: “Seascapes and the Utopic Horizons of Performance Studies”

What are the potential uses of seascapes as analytical tools for theatre and performance studies? This talk investigates several horizons of possibility in relation to the development of oceanic paradigms that might envision Nordic cultural production in new ways. Recent activities that concern the region, such as China’s plans for a polar silk road, will be considered alongside theoretical issues. The theoretical discussion is anchored in a series of provocations provided by such emergent methodologies as ecodramaturgy and performance climates in an effort to think through both utopic and dystopic visions of the sea as they pertain to and are shaped through performance.

Susanne Foellmer (Coventry University, UK)

Susanne Foellmer's research areas embrace aesthetic theory and corporeality in contemporary dance, performance, and in the Weimar Era, relationships between dance and ‘other’ media, temporality, historicity, and politicality of performance. She also has been working as a dramaturge and artistic consultant for Isabelle Schad, Meg Stuart, and Jeremy Wade among others.

Susanne Foellmer is Professor in Dance Studies at Coventry University, Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE), UK. Her research areas embrace aesthetic theory and corporeality in contemporary dance, performance, and in the Weimar Era, relationships between dance and ‘other’ media, temporality, historicity, and politicality of performance.

Recent publications include: Performing Arts in Transition. Moving Between Media (ed., with M. K. Schmidt and C. Schmitz), Routledge 2019; Media Practices, Social Movements, and Performativity (ed., with M. Lünenborg and Ch. Raetzsch), Routledge 2018; and forthcoming: On Remnants and Vestiges. Negotiating Persistence and Ephemerality in the Performing Arts. Routledge 2022.

Susanne Foellmer Abstract (66 Kb)

Willmar Sauter (Stockholm University, SE): “The Magic of Presence: Moments, Memories, Methods”

Willmar Sauter, Emeritus Professor of Theatre Studies, enrolled at the (then) Department of Theatre History in Stockholm in 1968. Since 1974 he has been employed by Stockholms University and he is still supporting a few PhD-students. His latest publication is Aesthetics of Presence: Philosophical and Practical Reconsiderations (2021).

Conference Abstract: “The Magic of Presence: Moments, Memories, Methods”

Every habitual visitor remembers some magic moments of theatrical events: a striking feeling of immediate presence. What are these experiences of presence about? What triggers them, under which circumstances are they taking place?

This lecture is an attempt to point out some decisive parameters that facilitate strong experiences of performative situations. On the basis of a new rhombic model I will show how these parameters coordinate the senses of the beholder and create magic moments of presence. Then, presence remains as future memories of the past.

Invited Artists

In the spirit of creating a new future in-between art and research, we have invited two Nordic directors and performers who both realize utopias in and possibly beyond performance. They will present their views on utopia through their work of art, and engage in a conversation with each other and the audience. The panel will be live streamed for the general public.

Gry Worre Hallberg/Sisters Hope (Copenhagen)

Gry Worre Hallberg is the co-founder and artistic director of the award-winning performance group and movement Sisters Hope and has founded the large-scale project Sisters Academy exploring new modes of Sensuous Learning. Furthermore, Gry is also behind the vision The Sensuous Society: Beyond economic rationality – which explores how the qualities of the sensuous relate to a more sustainable future. Moreover, it is the visionary fundament for Sisters Hope’s work. Besides being a requested speaker, facilitator and teacher, she has been invited to do two TEDx talks on the subject: Sensuous society at TEDxCopenhagen (2013) and Sensuous Learning at TEDxUppsalaUniversity (2015).

She has published a number of articles about Sisters Hope’s work and method and submitted an artistic reserach PhD (2021, University of Copenhagen) titled Sensuous Society - Carving the path towards a sustianable future through aesthetic inhabitation stimulating ecologic conncetedness in which she argues that we must develop practice spaces in which we can move from temporary participation to permanent inhabitation of the arts.

http://sistersacademy.dk/about/

Linn Hilda Lamberg (Stockholm)

Linn Hilda Lamberg is a Swedish trans-disciplinary artist. Since 2007 she has founded and led two artistic companies, Poste Restante (together with Stefan Åkesson and Erik Berg) and O (together with Jens Nielsen and Tomas Rajnai). In immersive situations she explores the relationship between art and its audience. Linn Hilda holds a position as phd-candidate at Stockholm University of the Arts.