{"id":96,"date":"2016-02-16T15:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T15:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/?p=96"},"modified":"2022-05-29T09:26:57","modified_gmt":"2022-05-29T09:26:57","slug":"redefining-femininity-in-todays-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/redefining-femininity-in-todays-theatre\/","title":{"rendered":"Redefining Femininity in Today\u2019s Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Margareta S\u00f6renson<\/strong>[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\"1306009849\"<\/p>\n

It is a great pleasure to present the different perspectives of \u201cfemininity\u201d exposed in the symposium Redefining Femininity in Today\u2019s Teatre<\/em> during the IATC congress held in June 2010 in Yerevan, Armenia. The contributions form a rainbow of cultures, social and historical patterns that all together give new backgrounds and frameworks for today\u2019s theatre in different parts of the world. The fact that IATC is becoming more global than ever before has opened up the possibility of including presentations from India, China, Iran, Korea and Japan as well as from Latvia, Hungary, Georgia or Canada. A historiographic perspective dominated the debate and it is obvious that feminism\u2014taken as either a social and political ambition or an effective struggle, as well as a theory\u2014, is perceived as a kind of mother to such notions as \u201cfemininity.\u201d Moreover femininity is clearly understood and interpreted differently according to the various cultures and languages. Should \u201cfemininity\u201d be a way to describe how women are pictured on stage? Does it represent mental or moral qualities\u2014like the strength of Greek classical theatre\u2019s female roles? Should it be presented as physical and body signs changing in nature together with new life conditions of modern men and women? Should it be regarded as a political resistance or an aesthetical choice? Could it be a result of hundred years of individualism, where the reduction of the human being to a member of a class, sex or country is no longer enough as an identity?<\/p>\n

Discussing femininity does not necessarily confront the contradictions that exist between men and women on a social and economical level, let alone in their relation to power. Contradictions remain, of course, in many ways, but the notion of femininity allows us to clarify structures shared by men and women alike; it also allows us to note tendencies in the relations, behaviours and exposures in theatre.<\/p>\n

The initiative taken by IATC president Yun-Cheol Kim to launch the theme of \u201cfemininity\u201d for the symposium was a self-critical one. \u201cUnfortunately, empirically, theatre critics are generally suffering from a fear of change,\u201d he stated in his opening speech of the symposium Redefining Femininity in Today\u2019s Theatr<\/em>e. \u201cWe have to find some ways to achieve social relevance,\u201d he continued, and pointed out: \u201cThis is why we will be talking about femininity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The richness exposed during the symposium of different roads to approach contemporary theatre also forces me to agree with the note of self-criticism of Yun-Cheol Kim when he opened the symposium. Indeed, after a century of active feminism in the world\u2014after decades of experiments, new theories and of efforts to make theatre reflect modern women and up-dated femininity\u2014how come that this is the first time that the topic of anything related to women in theatre is taken up by IATC? Maybe the crisis of criticism, which we so often deplore, should be seen as connected to the lack of, or a weak interest in, criticism\u2019s social relevance.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, we now are able to present a wide range of interesting reports and reflections over what femininity staged could contain: from Geisha culture as misunderstood by westerners to female writing or, never spoken of in public, the different layers of open or hidden resistance to patriarchal structures wherever they have existed before or are still dominating today\u2019s society.<\/p>\n

We invite the reader to take a tour around the world with new and cleaned glasses. The journey will inspire us to other trips in other directions; our hope is that the articles will work as appetizers. The unique capacity of IATC is the possibility of crossing boundaries. Many of the facts and aspects of femininity might be locally or regionally well known, but exposed side by side, they show us new structures, patterns and ideas to explore.<\/p>\n

Red\u00e9finir la f\u00e9minit\u00e9 dans le th\u00e9\u00e2tre d\u2019aujourd\u2019hui<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Il me fait grand plaisir de pr\u00e9senter les diverses perspectives abord\u00e9es au cours du colloque \u00ab Red\u00e9finir la f\u00e9minit\u00e9 dans le th\u00e9\u00e2tre d\u2019aujourd\u2019hui \u00bb qui a lieu \u00e0 Erevan, en Arm\u00e9nie, en juin 2010. Ces contributions forment un arc-en-ciel de cultures et de motifs sociaux et historiques qui, pris ensemble, brosse un portrait de l\u2019\u00e9tat du th\u00e9\u00e2tre d\u2019aujourd\u2019hui dans diff\u00e9rentes parties du monde. Le fait que l\u2019AICT devienne plus internationale que jamais permet d\u2019accueillir tant des communications en provenance de l\u2019Inde, de la Chine, de l\u2019Iran de la Cor\u00e9e et du Japon que la Lettonie, de la Hongrie, de la G\u00e9orgie et du Canada. La perspective historiographique domine dans les pr\u00e9sentations et il est \u00e9vident que le f\u00e9minisme consid\u00e9r\u00e9 aussi bien dans ses ambitions sociales et politiques que comme militantisme ou th\u00e9orie, est d\u00e9sormais per\u00e7u comme ayant donn\u00e9 naissance \u00e0 des notions comme \u00ab f\u00e9minit\u00e9 \u00bb, assur\u00e9ment comprise et interpr\u00e9t\u00e9e diff\u00e9remment selon les langues et les cultures. Cette notion peut-elle aider \u00e0 d\u00e9crire la fa\u00e7on dont les femmes sont d\u00e9peintes sur sc\u00e8ne ? La f\u00e9minit\u00e9 repr\u00e9sente-t-elle une qualit\u00e9 mentale ou morale, telle que mise en relief par la force accord\u00e9e aux r\u00f4les f\u00e9minins dans la trag\u00e9die grecque ? Doit-elle pr\u00e9senter les signes physiques et corporels d\u2019une nature qui \u00e9volue avec les conditions de vie des hommes et des femmes ? Doit-on envisager la f\u00e9minit\u00e9 en tant que r\u00e9sistance politique ou comme un choix esth\u00e9tique ? Peut-elle \u00eatre le r\u00e9sultat de centaines d\u2019ann\u00e9es d\u2019individualisme o\u00f9 la r\u00e9duction de l\u2019\u00eatre humain \u00e0 une classe, un sexe ou \u00e0 un pays ne peut plus tenir lieu d\u2019identit\u00e9 ?<\/p>\n

Discuter de la f\u00e9minit\u00e9 ne demande pas de s\u2019appesantir sur les oppositions qui existent entre les hommes et les femmes au niveau social et \u00e9conomique, ni d\u2019insister sur les relations de pouvoir. \u00c0 bien des \u00e9gards, ces oppositions demeurent, bien entendu, mais la notion de f\u00e9minit\u00e9 nous permet de clarifier les structures communes aux hommes et aux femmes et d\u2019observer les tendances dans les relations, les comportements et leur traitement, par exemple, au th\u00e9\u00e2tre.<\/p>\n

L\u2019initiative du pr\u00e9sident de l\u2019AICT, Yun-Cheol Kim, d\u2019aborder le th\u00e8me de la f\u00e9minit\u00e9 au cours de ce congr\u00e8s participe d\u2019une autocritique. \u00ab Malheureusement, empiriquement, les critiques de th\u00e9\u00e2tre souffrent g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement d\u2019une peur du changement, a-t-il d\u00e9clar\u00e9 de son discours d\u2019ouverture du colloque \u00ab Red\u00e9finir la f\u00e9minit\u00e9 dans le th\u00e9\u00e2tre d\u2019aujourd\u2019hui \u00bb. Or, nous avons besoin de retrouver notre pertinence sociale, a-t-il poursuivi, et c\u2019est pourquoi nous allons discuter de la question de la f\u00e9minit\u00e9. \u00bb<\/p>\n

La richesse des voies par laquelle le th\u00e9\u00e2tre contemporain a \u00e9t\u00e9 abord\u00e9 durant ce colloque m\u2019oblige \u00e0 convenir du bien-fond\u00e9 de l\u2019autocritique formul\u00e9e par Yun-Cheol Kim lors de son discours d\u2019ouverture. Apr\u00e8s une centaine d\u2019ann\u00e9es de f\u00e9minisme actif dans le monde, apr\u00e8s des d\u00e9cennies d\u2019exp\u00e9rimentation, de nouvelles th\u00e9ories et d\u2019essais afin que le th\u00e9\u00e2tre refl\u00e8te les femmes et une f\u00e9minit\u00e9 actuelles, comment se fait-il que c\u2019est la premi\u00e8re fois qu\u2019une question reli\u00e9e aux femmes au th\u00e9\u00e2tre soit abord\u00e9e par l\u2019AICT ? Apr\u00e8s tout, la crise, souvent d\u00e9plor\u00e9e, que traverse actuellement la critique, ne devrait-elle pas nous sensibiliser \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9gard de son manque de pertinence sociale ?<\/p>\n

Le lecteur est invit\u00e9 \u00e0 entreprendre ce tour du monde avec des yeux neufs. Ce p\u00e9riple lui inspirera sans doute d\u2019autres voyages dans d\u2019autres directions. Puisque l\u2019AICT nous offre justement la possibilit\u00e9 de traverser les fronti\u00e8res, il est \u00e0 esp\u00e9rer que les articles qui suivent lui en donnent le go\u00fbt. En effet, si plusieurs dimensions de la f\u00e9minit\u00e9 peuvent \u00eatre connues \u00e0 une \u00e9chelle locale ou r\u00e9gionale, les faire figurer c\u00f4te-\u00e0-c\u00f4te r\u00e9v\u00e8le \u00e0 coup s\u00fbr des structures, des patterns et des id\u00e9es nouvelles \u00e0 explorer.<\/p>\n

\n

\"1306009849\"<\/p>\n

<\/a>[1] Margareta S\u00f6renson<\/strong> is a Swedish theatre and dance critic. She has directed the Seminars for young critics for some time and, recently, at the Congress of the IATC in Yerevan (Armenia), she was appointed Vice-President, as well as Director of Colloquia, of that same Association.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2010 Margareta S\u00f6renson
\nCritical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em> e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This work is licensed under the
\nCreative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Margareta S\u00f6renson[1] It is a great pleasure to present the different perspectives of \u201cfemininity\u201d exposed in the symposium Redefining Femininity in Today\u2019s Teatre during the IATC congress held in June 2010 in Yerevan, Armenia. The contributions form a rainbow of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-special-files","","tg-column-two"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/02\/1306009849.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gg5F-1y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":798,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions\/798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}