WHERE: TBA (in Helsinki)
TICKETS: Can be purchased at Fienta. 50€ Supporting ticket, 25€ Ordinary ticket, 15€ Discount ticket, 10€ Students in the arts field.
WHAT:
Blaue Frau opens its 20th anniversary with the performance Still Looking for Rick
Blaue Frau turns 20 and despairs. Two decades of persistent work for justice and equality have not made the world a better place. Quite the contrary. Individualism and self-interest prevail. Internet trolls have moved into parliaments. Feminism is dead, or devoted to skincare products. So what happened? Where did it go wrong? Can we start again?
In the performance Still Looking for Rick, the debate forum www.genusdebatt.com from 2006 is used as a starting point for an investigation of the feminist conversation then and now. What has happened since then and what responsibility do we bear? How broad is our solidarity? Could anything have been done differently? Would we have had a different world if we had managed to win over our opponents?
Can we still change things? Do we want to? (Can we? Dare we?)
And… who is Rick?
Background: In 2005, the issue of gender equality in theaters was raised in many places in Swedish Finland. During the following fall and spring, the subject was discussed on the pages of the HBL newspaper, on the radio, at Cefisto’s Theater Days and, not least, in the corridors and backstage areas of the theaters themselves. Among the most vocal were Joanna Wingren and Sonja Ahlfors, a duo who had just founded a new feminist theater group: Blaue Frau.
The 2005-06 gender equality debate stood out in several ways. It challenged conventional ideas about sex and gender, questioned the very notion of quality, and, perhaps most importantly, framed gender inequality as an issue that affects everyone—not just those directly disadvantaged by it. Another defining feature of this debate was its shift online, broadening its reach and impact.
In 2005, Facebook and social media had yet to become household names. While online discussion forums existed, they were not the expected venue for conversations about Finland-Swedish theater. That changed in February 2006 when stay-at-home dad Jonte Wingren launched www.genusdebatt.com as a platform for the then-simmering gender equality debate. The response was immediate—over 200 posts were published in February alone by more than 70 contributors, with the momentum carrying into March. Even more people visited the site to follow the discussions, and by the end of 2006, it had attracted over 50,000 visitors.
One of the people who found the site was Rick. Rick eventually became the site’s most active debater, not so much interested in solving gender inequality as in rejecting the whole issue and engaging in inappropriate attacks behind the protection of anonymity. The page, which initially exuded hope and creativity, increasingly became an animated discussion with Rick. Debaters dropped off one by one and only a handful remained when the page was shut down in January 2007.
LANGUAGE: Performed in Swedish, but is available in English
DURATION: TBA (max. 3 h)
AGE RECOMMENDATION: All participants must be at least 18 years old
WHO:
Concept: Vega Adsten, Sonja Ahlfors, Maja Döbling, Christoffer Mellgren, Joanna Wingren
Dramaturge: Christoffer Mellgren
Actors: Vega Adsten, Sonja Ahlfors, Joanna Wingren
Set and costume design: Maja Döbling
Makeup and hair: Nina Vuori
Graphic design: Johan Isaksson
Production assistant: Sofia Strandberg
Production: Blaue Frau
PRESS PICTURE: Johan Isaksson