Research Catalogue

This doctoral project explores how different modes of representation in theatre can address the challenges to democracy through theatre performances. Through a combination of artistic narrative and performative analysis, the conceptualization, dramaturgy, staging and meaning making is presented. An existential, sociological, and cognitive understanding of narrative – where the blending of factual and fictional materials, the narration of a manifold of voices and audience participation has been in focus – have contributed to the ambition to engage with society through theatre. In addition, dialogical models used in the performances, such as conversation, perspective-taking, and invitation for self-reflection, are presented and discussed.

The Listening Room at Piteå Performing Arts Biennial will grow exponentially with each festival. This first installments is a repository for presentations in the pre event in 2020.

Död åt välfärdsstaten (Death to the Welfare State) was a theatre performance for actors, dancers, and musicians that dealt with a concern that the welfare system in Sweden was about to be dismantled. To explore this worry political speeches were superimposed with a narrative inspired by George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm to examine how perceptions of welfare in Sweden have changed from the early 1900s to the present. This artistic research exposition elaborates on the process of developing the theatre piece. It unpacks how the relation between discourse and narrative informed the text and music, and how it allowed for a dramaturgical structure that included all the various performative elements and artistic expressions. Furthermore, the exposition discusses how the performance was composed through a collaboration that was characterised by an open-ended dialogue between the artists and how this enabled distributed decision making, as well as artists performing in other ways than they are used to. The exposition explores the open format of Research Catalogue. Through text and video documentation it builds on the dramaturgical structure of the performance itself: an introduction, five parts and an epilogue. The ambition of the exposition has been to make yet another iteration of the performance.