Sweden’s Theatre Biennale 2025

Sweden’s Scenkonstbiennalen ’25 took place in Östersund this year, following the previous anniversary biennale in Stockholm during 2023. Run by ScenSverige, the ITI organisation for Sweden, the biennale is a gathering of performing arts that provides access to performances, networking events, seminars, and workshops across a variety of venues. Sweden is a long country, and Östersund is quite north (though more centrally located geographically). Like most countries, it has a north/south dynamic that often situates one side more important/populated/culturally thriving than the other. So, to host the biennale in traditional Southern Sámi lands was quite a significant choice. To programme a (relatively) extensive Sámi array of showcases and talks also seemed, to me as an outsider, a positive decision. I couldn’t imagine the same happening within the Scottish theatre industry for our Gaelic colleagues, recognising the traditional lands upon which we work.

It was a pleasure to return to Sápmi so soon after my previous visit to Kiruna. I hadn’t expected that it would occur so soon, but I am grateful for the opportunity. Spending time in Östersund, particularly being so welcomed at Gaaltije (the Sámi museum) and their gåetie (the traditional tent), was a real privilege and gave me the opportunity to interrogate the conflict of Western sustainable practices and indigenous living, meet new performers with brilliant ideas and experiences, and to immerse myself in traditional cultural expressions. This gave me such an alternative experience to my prior time at the biennale in Stockholm. One was a more calm week with more fringe expressions permeating across a small city, whilst the other was a bustling hectic week sprawling across the capital and seeing polished institutional work in grand spaces. I preferred this years biennale, it made me feel more connected with others and the performing arts, and it exposed me to more dance than I had anticipated.

From my perspective, and possibly from my own timetable, there was a healthy amount of dance programmed in this year’s biennale. However, having spoken to some dance artists, they thought otherwise. There was an interesting tension between theatre and dance during this week which I felt bubbling under the surface but never quite confronted. I will throw my hands up and admit my ignorance to the dance world. At the same time, I will acknowledge how the dance field really carried the torch of dramaturgy in the UK whilst theatre showed a general apathy to the craft. I am of the opinion that dramaturgs working today should be grateful to those working in the dance sector for maintaining the knowledge and practice of dramaturgy. Regardless, I was certainly challenged to consider why this tension existed at the biennale. With recent cuts to the cultural sector of Sweden, I presume that greater concerns and anxieties manifest at this smaller level, something that perhaps we Brits are more used to. A great concern would be the gatekeepers of both sides beginning to draw rigid lines about what constitutes theatre and what constitutes dance. I heard a mumble of certain “dance” programming not really counting. This should be challenged or discussed before being left to fester, particularly in light of the amount of traditional/indigenous expressions being showcased, forms that already have greater obstacles to being accepted and appreciated within the industry at large.

During the week I started with an “off-programme” performance called Pelikanen. I do somewhat resent the “off-programme” label that came with it and think its foolish that the biennale DIDN’T specifically programme this absolute gem of musical absurdism! This was a standout production that heightened the ridiculousness of Strindberg whilst creating an aesthetic and comedic world that really drew you in as an audience. And throw in some absolute belter songs? Perfection. Teater Galeasen’s Dansen was also a clever and witty meta-theatrical production that devolved with each repeated scene and demonstrated how best to use the typical burdens of theatre making to a show’s advantage. Camilla Therese Karlsen also presented two works at the gåetie which crossed the forms of joik, circus, spoken word, and movement. Her work was both joyous and fun but a challenge and provocation to those of us with colonial histories etched in our experience. I left the tent feeling hopeful more than anything which is a powerful gift to an audience in this day and age.

On the final day, under the moniker of Teater Dictat, I sat in conversation with Johan Svensson before an audience. The session was covering the topic of autofiction, a theatrical form which I find myself specialising in. It was a smooth conversation in which the two of us presented our ideas and experiences, I challenged myself with new questions, and met the audience with their own musings on the form. At the end, someone asked me if I thought documentary theatre was shit, due to what I had been saying about some bad examples of people using autobiography to tell a story, and I soon realised how closely related this two forms of theatre could be, without my having put fair consideration to how my thoughts on autofiction directly challenge the very foundations of documentary theatre. Although, the two forms are polar opposites in my head, there is definitely scope to assess the ways they intersect.

And just like that, my mind is alight with ideas, my practice is challenged and tightened, and I feel more inspired about the capabilities of the theatre industry during trying times. So I return home with a new motivation to approach my work.