Activating Dance Records. Conceptualizing research into the Swedish, Nordic and global archives pertaining to the Russian dancer Anna Robenne

This article explores the following research question: In what ways can activations of dance records (archived materials and other recordings of activities) be conceptualized to contribute to the making of a critically productive dance history in the digital age? Drawing on an extensive study of the Russian dancer Anna Robenne, the article focuses on the archival explorations (or road trip) as such, and in particular the multifaceted ways in which the records themselves can be active agents in processes of memory making and history production. Adopting recent theoretical developments concerning the concept of pluralization in archival studies, the exploration discards the conventional and rather static understanding of records as neutral containers of facts to emphasize instead an inclusive and infinitely evolving process. Working within an interdisciplinary archive-oriented realm, the author reflexively makes use of practices and methods belonging to both art history and classical and contemporary dance tradition. The article first maps recent pluralizing approaches within archival studies including re-theorizations of the key concepts records, provenance, value and representation. It then conceptualizes archival activation through examples from the archival road trip. The article concludes by offering the reader clear arguments for archival pluralization in the form of intimate, invasive, and imaginary activation, and demonstrates the importance and relevance of closely, critically and imaginatively engaging with records. The article highlights the role the archive can play in breaking down cultural barriers and re-evaluating notions of dance historiography, heritage and cultural identity

Scenographing Resistance: Remembering Ride This Night

In 1942 Vilhelm Moberg’s (1898–1973) highly successful historical novel Ride This Night! (1941) was adapted for the theatre and premiered at several Swedish theatres as well as being distributed as a film. While Sweden maintained what was termed a neutral position during World War II, Moberg’s novel, together with its various performances, facilitated a mood of resistance against Nazism. In recognition of this, the focus of my article is the much-celebrated first performance of Ride This Night at the City Theatre (Stadsteatern) in Gothenburg on 14 October 1942. To explore this performance as theatrical memory of World War II, I draw on recent scenography theory emphasizing the holistic role of material and affective relations between bodies, objects and environments. By doing so, the article contributes an historical case study to the international field of critical scenography, and challenges the ways in which previous Swedish art and theatre historiography has theoretically understood and explored the powers of scenographic traits of past performance

Russian Relations: Radical Empathy as a Method for Researching the Migrant Dancer Anna Robenne in Russian Archives

This article explores the unlikely collaboration between a Swedish art and dance historian, a Russian amateur historian, and a Russian-Swedish doctoral student to seek out the early career of migrating dancer Anna Robenne (one of her names). The article looks into the activist ways in which the explorers interacted with Russian, Swedish, and Finnish archives in order to both reveal and make accessible cross-border materials and knowledge pertaining to Robenne. To explore the relationship between the Robenne materials, the archival institutions, and the group of collaborating historians, the authors draw on Caswell and Cifor’s notion of “radical empathy”. The article thus brings new archival theory into the performing arts domain and makes a dance contribution to the broader field of critical archival and heritage studies. To cross borders to account for Robenne’s Russian legacy counters previous historiography’s disinterest in following the careers of non-canonized migrating artists in the Nordic-Baltic region

Transversal dances across time and space: Feminist strategies for a critical heritage studies

Transversal dances across time and space: Feminist strategies for a critical heritage studie

Strindberg across Borders, edited by Massimo Ciaravolo

A world-famous playwright, but also a writer of genius in all literary genres, and, in addition, a man with an interest in painting, photography, languages, history, politics, natural sciences, religion and occultism, August Strindberg (1849-1912) sometimes reminds us of the universal Renaissance genius, though endowed with the anxious spirit of an artist in the age of modernity and advanced capitalism. Strindberg practised border crossing as a transgression against norms and a questioning of authorities; his position as a layman was perhaps uncomfortable but also a guarantee for the freedom and mobility he needed for artistic creativity and experimentation. Strindberg’s border crossing was, furthermore, a clearly developed transnational and multilingual agenda. Finally, his border crossing dealt with the historical condition of moving back and forth over the threshold between good old times and modernity. He was conscious of the contradictions involved, and torn between a constant avant-garde attitude, eager to connect with the most advanced artistic trends in Europe and conquer new grounds, and a nostalgic look backward, which explains, for example, his perception of a loss of natural space as well as his nostalgia for a lost patriarchal order. Thanks to this unruly fire and inexhaustible linguistic vitality, Strindberg became a seminal forerunner of modernism and twentieth-century art. Today his innovative work is more alive and challenging than ever. This volume gathers twenty-one contributions, written either in English or Swedish, by scholars from Sweden, Italy, Lithuania, France, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Russia, and the United States. The collected essays testify to the manifold aspects of border crossing in August Strindberg’s work, and the wide range of approaches to this aspect: world literature and the construction of Strindberg’s authorship (Vera Gancheva, Ann-Charlotte Gavel Adams); translation studies (Elisabeth Tegelberg, Alexander Künzli and Gunnel Engwall); interaction with discourses focused on gender, politics and science (Tobias Dahlkvist, Massimo Ciaravolo, Cecilia Carlander); Strindberg’s anti-materialistic and anti-positivistic binary oppositions between outward and inward, lower and upper reality (Annie Bourguignon, Deimantė Dementavičiūtė-Stankuvienė, Polina Lisovskaya, Astrid Regnell); forms of intertextuality in Strindberg’s work, or deriving from it (Maria Cristina Lombardi, Andreas Wahlberg, Roland Lysell, Martin Hellström); theatre studies and stage productions (Franco Perrelli, Gytis Padegimas, Elvyra Markevičiūtė, Richard Bark); visual interpretations of Strindberg’s work such as sketches for a stage production and comics (Astrid von Rosen, David Gedin)

Introduction: Toward an Engaged Feminist Heritage Praxis

We advocate a feminist approach to archaeological heritage work in order to transform heritage practice and the production of archaeological knowledge. We use an engaged feminist standpoint and situate intersubjectivity and intersectionality as critical components of this practice. An engaged feminist approach to heritage work allows the discipline to consider women’s, men’s, and gender non-conforming persons’ positions in the field, to reveal their contributions, to develop critical pedagogical approaches, and to rethink forms of representation. Throughout, we emphasize the intellectual labor of women of color, queer and gender non-conforming persons, and early white feminists in archaeology

Knut Ström’s Scenography and Visual World. Visualization in Time and Space.

A pioneer in his field, Knut Ström (1887–1971) was a Swedish scenographer and director, who became the first professional scenographer in Sweden. He had an early international career in Düsseldorf during the 1910s but later worked in Göteborg for 41 years. He made visual revolution in Swedish scenography putting his name at stake to navigate between technology, critique and audience. There are thousands of visual statements left from Ström’s extensive production, such as scenographic sketches, costume sketches, scenographic models, photographs and posters. Earlier studies have not to any great extent taken an interest in visual material of this kind. This thesis presents a model for how to deal with such an extensive visual material in relation to the long period of time encompassed by the study. The aim is to expose, understand and explain Knut Ström’s scenography and visual world. Three questions – who was Knut Ström, what did he strive for and what did he do? – have helped in the work.The thesis, with its ten chronological chaptersis geographically grounded. Case studies with scenographic angles are alternated with analyses of Ström’s personal experiences, professional positions and staging of himself. A selection of Ström’s scenographic work at Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf, Lorensbergsteatern and Göteborgs stadsteater is examined. Gordon Craig’s and Adolphe Appia’s theories about dramatic art and a formal analysis based in art history have been used as methodological tools in combination with a semiotic approach in the exposure and analysis of these. Theoretically the study has been carried out using the idea of a translating place inspired by Jacques Lacan’s concepts the symbolic, the imaginary and the real. Ström’s theatrical works are related to their contextual connections in a stepwise historically based process. It has been essential to illuminate political, aesthetic, economic, media, and class factors. In the concluding discussion some signifiers, such as film, technology, and visualization, are used to develop the scenography and visual world of Ström

Kärleken till komplexiteten. En pedagogisk reflektion över svindelns nödvändighet i konstvetenskaplig undervisning.

I undervisningen i ämnet konst- och bildvetenskap ställs läraren inför utmaningen att hantera studenternas ibland frustrerade och vilsna möte med komplexa studieobjekt. I denna artikel ställer jag följande huvudfråga: På vilka grunder kan man som lärare förstå och hantera studenternas frustration och vilsenhet inför komplexiteten? Syftet med undersökningen är att problematisera och teoretiskt benämna det jag kallar för kärleken till komplexiteten. Mitt arbete fokuserar särskilt på den dimension som berör lärarens och/eller forskarens medvetenhet i den pedagogiska gärningen. Jag vill bidra med ett teoretiskt förankrat underlag för fortsatta konstruktiva diskussioner kring de utmaningar det innebär att undervisa inom ett humanistiskt fält där outtömlig komplexitet hör till grundförutsättningarna. Min undersökning har resulterat i idén om en svindelns pedagogik där kärleken till komplexiteten ges utrymme inom undervisningens ramar

Sweating with Peer Gynt. Performative exchange as a way of accessing scenographic action

The present article addresses the rather complex notion of scenography in relation to historical research. Two performances of Henrik Ibsens’s Peer Gynt are presented as case studies with the aim of stimulating scenographic analyses of historical material. This approach does not dismiss the importance of the dramatic text, or the actors, or the various contexts in which the performances take place. On the contrary, I strongly believe that one always has to account for the multifarious complexity of a theatrical event. However, my research is guided by an interest in exploring ways of accessing long-past practices, forms and events, rather than relying on the assumption that one recovers something stable and fixed. What I claim is very simple: much more reliable knowledge can be produced by exploring, and working with traces from past events and theatrical processes. This approach can be associated with a current trend in theatre studies, in which “historical research has once more come to the fore” (Tessing Schneider & Skjoldager-Nielsen, 2011, 5) as well as an ethic of “being-with” the objects of investigation found in artistic research (e.g. Hannula 2008). On a general level, my approach can be associated with the affective turn in the humanities. Acknowledging corporeality, materiality and sensuousness, this turn also notices the importance of social aspects, transformation and critical development (Diprose, 2002; Meskimmon, 2011).   This study is mainly concerned with the question of how we can theorize, and play with the challenging difference between a performance that one has actually experienced, intellectually as well as physically, and a performance that is accessible only through traces and fragments. I raise this question both as an art history scholar and as a former professional classical and contemporary dancer. This means that I make use of my own experiences from the theatre – an approach that does not detract from the requirements of critical thinking and accuracy in scholarly research

Sweating with Peer Gynt. Performative exchange as a way of accessing scenographic action

The present article addresses the rather complex notion of scenography in relation to historical research. Two performances of Henrik Ibsens’s Peer Gynt are presented as case studies with the aim of stimulating scenographic analyses of historical material. This approach does not dismiss the importance of the dramatic text, or the actors, or the various contexts in which the performances take place. On the contrary, I strongly believe that one always has to account for the multifarious complexity of a theatrical event. However, my research is guided by an interest in exploring ways of accessing long-past practices, forms and events, rather than relying on the assumption that one recovers something stable and fixed. What I claim is very simple: much more reliable knowledge can be produced by exploring, and working with traces from past events and theatrical processes. This approach can be associated with a current trend in theatre studies, in which “historical research has once more come to the fore” (Tessing Schneider & Skjoldager-Nielsen, 2011, 5) as well as an ethic of “being-with” the objects of investigation found in artistic research (e.g. Hannula 2008). On a general level, my approach can be associated with the affective turn in the humanities. Acknowledging corporeality, materiality and sensuousness, this turn also notices the importance of social aspects, transformation and critical development (Diprose, 2002; Meskimmon, 2011).   This study is mainly concerned with the question of how we can theorize, and play with the challenging difference between a performance that one has actually experienced, intellectually as well as physically, and a performance that is accessible only through traces and fragments. I raise this question both as an art history scholar and as a former professional classical and contemporary dancer. This means that I make use of my own experiences from the theatre – an approach that does not detract from the requirements of critical thinking and accuracy in scholarly research.