The performance Sex Education II: Fight approaches the topic of female contraception history with an archaeological lens. What themes do you address in other pieces of the series, and what theatrical tools do you use?
- There are four more parts to Sex Education II - Diagnosis, Consentire, Ability and Play, each with its own unique approach.
The first part explores vaginismus and painful sexual experiences. Vaginismus is a spasm of the pelvic floor muscles, which makes vaginal penetration impossible, even when the woman desires it. It is the most severe sexual disorder in women, rarely discussed and often tabooed. Painful sexual intercourse occurs when penetration is possible but painful due to involuntary tensing of the pelvic floor muscles. To prepare for Diagnosis, we spoke with gynecologist and sexologist Dr. Gabriela Smetinger, and with women who experience vaginismus or pain during intercourse. We were surprised at how many women have this problem. In Diagnosis, it was important to us to destigmatize these conditions and question what sex actually is, since therapy for women with these conditions involves redefining sex beyond vaginal penetration.
The second part, Consentire, focuses on the topic of consent. We based the peice on interviews with women, in which we did not focus so much on cases of non-consensual experiences but more on the practice of consensual sex. We explore the notion that while consent is considered the norm, people rarely discuss what it means in practice. The first two parts, Diagnosis + Consentire, are always performed together. They resemble installations, they are the most performative, physical, and are performed by Nika Rozman and Tea Vidmar.
The third part, Ability, delves into the sexual lives and pleasure of women with disabilities. We have four protagonists who shared their stories with us. They are not on stage, because they wanted to remain anonymous. We listen to their recorded confessions - some in their original voices, others voiced by an actress - while images of disabled bodies are projected. It was important to us that the audience gets to hear their stories and imagine their bodies, as it was repeatedly highlighted in our research and interviews that society overlooks women with disabilities as sexual beings.
The fourth part, Play, explores unconventional sexual practices, the so-called kink practices and fetishes. In our society, these practices are often labeled as sick. We aimed to present these practices in a more positive light. Performer Lina Akif takes us on a journey through a house of pleasure and different spaces within it, presenting various unconventional sexual practices and the people who engage in them in a playful, creative way.
Each part can be performed independently, with each segment lasting about 45 minutes to an hour; when performed in full with breaks, the series takes about six hours.
As it revisits the history of the struggle for reproductive rights, is the last part the conclusion of the series?
- This was my decision, which I made early in the process. For the first three months, I led a research phase with the four performers through workshops, each of us contributing material and scenes. I had some ideas during this phase. I knew I wanted Vanda Velagić and Sendi Bakotić in the segment on history and Yugoslavia due to their personal interests and language. For example, the theme of sexual satisfaction for women with disabilities was not initially planned. Lina Akif suggested it because she felt it was very important. After those initial three months, as our ideas solidified and as we clearly defined the themes, we had our first run-through. This, of course, wasn't a real run-through, but more of a rough outline of the whole. Already at that stage I was sure Fight should come last. In terms or dramaturgy, it made the most sense to first raise the question of what sex means to us today, then to explore consent and how it is practiced, to then finally address unconventional practices through the experiences of women with disabilities. Fight comes last, allowing us to take a step back from current issues. We create an opportunity for us to examine how far we have come in terms of women's rights and female pleasure, comparing where we are now to where we were 80 years ago. The perspective offered in Fight allows us to view and understand other episodes in the series through a different perspective.
What is it that we learn from past struggles, and what is needed for the fight today?
- What motivated us to look back at history and seemed necessary was a desire for this part to encourage and inspire people. As artists, we were inspired by Vida Tomšić’s and Franc Novak’s struggle. They started their fight in harsh, challenging times. Their fight for women’s reproductive rights was inspiring for us, how they spoke and wrote, and how they influenced and changed people’s opinions. Today, contraception in Slovenia is mostly free, as is abortion, which is relatively accessible. However, in most countries, neither are free. What’s more, at present day in some countries abortion is largely inaccessible. There is a growing trend toward retraditionalizing society, which affects state policies on reproductive freedom. After World War II, some gynecologists were against contraception as they though it promotes anti-natalist policies: if we want a higher birth rate, we must not promote contraception. Vida Tomšič and Franc Novak argued that people would always find ways to prevent pregnancies and decide on whether or not to have children. The question is whether they would do this in a way that is safe for women. And whether or not we want for children to be wanted.
What drew you to the themes of female sexuality and the history of sexual emancipation? Why do you believe these themes should be explored in theater?
- I genuinely believe that theater changes things, which is why I do this work. If I didn’t believe that, I would find working in theater pointless. This project came about at an interesting societal and personal moment. The idea took root in early 2021, during the COVID pandemic on the one hand, and the Slovenian and Balkan MeToo movement on the other. When rehearsals were canceled due to the pandemic, I began questioning the purpose of theater and how to pursue it. The surge of testimonies about violence and harassment somehow inspired and encouraged me. It made me realize just how important the topic of women’s sexual rights is. My conclusion was that, if I was going to continue working in theater, this was the theme I wanted to address. I felt that if society was more aware of the right to pleasure, there would be less violence. By fighting for women’s right to sexual satisfaction we can also fight violence and create a safer world for women. I didn’t see sexual satisfaction as trivial or shameful but as existential, something that deserves a place in public space. When I put together my team, I realized they were as passionate about the topic as I was. Besides the performers I have already mentioned, the co-authors include Tijana Todorović, Barbara Kapelj, and Lena Lekše. The entire team was eager to explore unconventional theatrical methods, which I though was very important.
Your process is unconventional. Is your focus on devised theater and collective creation also a kind of fight? Against what, and for what?
- I could talk about a fight against something, but I believe that it is at the same time a fight for something. I think it is essential that we don’t just fight against something but also for something. I would say it is a fight to bring these topics into the theater and public discourse. In Slovenia, this is completely new. This topic is not discussed in theater. It is also a fight for a more research-based approach—working with people in the field as well as through the process. It was important to me that we jointly build a language for these themes, through a collective process. Additionally, it is a fight for the kind of work that responds to the needs of the work and process, creating art through that understanding. Traditional theater processes are standardized, usually the process of staging a performance takes two months. For us, it was vital to have the time we needed, a year and a half in a specific setting. Ultimately, it is a fight aimed at creating a safer world. For our group, a key theme was understanding consent in artistic, collective processes. As the director, it was important to me that my collaborators have their own artistic and personal autonomy. We talked about this quite openly.
Having worked in both institutional and independent theater, have you found that institutions can limit creative freedom?
- I haven’t worked extensively within institutions, but I think that outside them, you generally have much more freedom in terms of process and duration. I think it is much harder to fight for the right conditions for theatrical process within an institution.
You are also a psychodrama practitioner, you also lead a group. How has this work impacted your theater process?
- I think it has had a profound impact. Coming from an academic background in Comparative Literature and Philosophy, I was initially far more interested in the text. I assumed that theater meant working on a dramatic text, or based on a text, or in relation to a text. The more I got involved in psychodrama, the more I became captivated by personal stories. I encountered different stories and discovered such richness and poetry in them. Eventually, I lost the need to work with traditional texts. You can get very important answers by talking to people, and that is most relevant to me personally. In the process of making Sex Education II, I used certain psychodramatic exercises that proved invaluable to us all, because they allowed us to explore serious topics with a certain lightness. Psychodrama has so much to offer.
