Guests: Olga Nikolaeva on Contemporary Russian Theatre and Mischa Kan on Jazz Record Covers

This week we have two guest presentations by Olga Nikolaeva  and Mischa Kan.

About the seminar

Olga Nikolaeva: Women Practitioners and Scenography of Trauma in Contemporary Russian Theatre

The aim of the  project is to explore scenography of trauma in works of women practitioners in contemporary Russian theatre. Thus, the project has a dual intention. First, the project aims to explore possibilities of presentation of trauma in contemporary theatrical practices. This aim is endorsed by problems in the sociocultural sphere in contemporary Russia, where the subjects of trauma and diverse traumatic experiences are often underrepresented, undesirable, and perceived as threatening for the political agenda of the state. Second, the project aims to focus attention on women theatre directors and women stage artists in contemporary Russian theatre and thus to challenge hidden discrimination of their creative practices. While trauma, alongside memory and history, is continuously fractured, molded and even ignored, women practitioners continue to challenge the limits of articulation and apprehension of trauma in their work. To explore the presentation of trauma in contemporary Russian theatre this project employs recent theoretical developments in the field of scenography (Howard, Hann, McKinney, Palmer, etc.) and studies on trauma in the field of theatre, visual arts, and Russian culture (Pollock, Haughton, Merridale, Etkind etc.) in combination with a first-hand observation of performances.

Bio

Dr. Olga Nikolaeva is a postdoctoral researcher at the Swedish Performing Arts Agency (Stockholm) and lecturer in Visual Communication at Linneaus University (Kalmar). She hold a PhD in Art History and Visual Culture from Gothenburg University and MA in Visual Culture from Lund University. Her research interests lie primarily in the field of performing arts, scenography, materiality, and trauma. At present she is conducting a three years international postdoctoral research on scenography of trauma in works of women theatre directors and scenographers in contemporary Russia theatre.

Mischa Kan: Renegotiating the jazz record: Record covers as sites of human interaction with music media

When vinyl became the new standard for the jazz record medium in the 1950s, the record cover became an important site where listeners, critics, producers and musicians redefined the jazz record as a medium. In this seminar I will discuss how the packaging of the jazz record can help us to investigate how these actors renegotiated the understanding of the jazz recording and how this changed the music and its culture.

Bio

Mischa van Kan is a senior lecturer in musicology at Linnaeus University in Växjö, Sweden. Van Kan’s research interests include jazz, electronic music, and popular music, with a focus on the interactions between music cultures, media, and technology.

How to participate

It is possible to attend the seminar both from Dacke in Växjö and via zoom. Contact us at ims@lnu.se if you want to participate via zoom, or sign up for our external email list to receive automatic updates on our events (zoom link and additional information are sent out one week in advance).

Photo: 'Aurora - Connecting Senses’, Cristina Pop-Tiron & Signe Kjær Jensen