Staging gender: the articulation of tacit gender dimensions in drama classes in a Swedish context

Abstract

This article engages with gender, performance and embodiment in drama classes in a Swedish context. It presents a case study of how instructors at an academy of dramatic arts integrate theoretical knowledge on gender into their students’ creative and pedagogical practice, as well as an analysis of why this approach works. Visualisation of how the body is used on a concrete level offers a departure from traditional uses of theory as a way to challenge reality; instead the research describes how theory can be used in concrete didactic bodily movements, thus bringing the body, which is often overlooked in studies of pedagogy, into a discussion on knowledge acquisition.

Keywords:

• academy of dramatic arts
• teaching practices
• embodiment
• tacit knowledge
• gender awareness
• knowledge change

Notes

1 Drag could demonstrate the potential for subversive confusions, demonstrating that heterosexuality as an original is a myth (Butler 1999, 174–176; see also Lund 2011).

2 Hagström Ståhl has a doctorate in Performance Studies from University of California, Berkeley. In addition to her work as a dramaturgist in the Staging Gender project, as part of the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts' development work in the area of gender awareness, she was hired as a guest professor and teacher at the same seat of learning.

3 Self-interview is a technique used to articulate work within the framework of the performance arts, and is presented and offered at www.everybodystoolbox.net.

4 In spring 2008, the then rector Olle Jansson took the first initiative to work with female and male playwrights.

5 The complexity of the gaze has been widely theorised in feminist cinema studies, notably by Mulvey (1975) and Doane (1987). In this context, however, only certain aspects of the economy of the gaze were explored.

6 Edemo is a journalist and drama teacher, and employed as project leader of Staging Gender. She also worked as a teacher in the research block within the framework of The Modern Breakthrough.