During the seminar, I will present my research on scenography of trauma in contemporary Russian theatre. The research is focused on stage productions created by women theatre makers between 2019 and 2022 that directly and indirectly work with trauma and traumatic experience through different narratives. It focuses on scenography as meaning-making and affective tool that challenges the unrepresentable nature of trauma without appropriation of others’ experience. The talk explores specific concepts, such as, scenography of place orientation, scenographic ecology, kinesthetic empathy, and empathic unsettlement that help to analyze how trauma and traumatic experience are represented on stage and by what means. The subject of trauma, due to its close connection to the subject of memory and history, is continuously fractured, molded, ignored, or even silenced. It is especially relevant in the context of present-day Russia where sever censorship does not allow a space for reflection over trauma and traumatic experience. Among examples discussed during the seminar are “Finist, The Brave Falcon” and “The Rhyme” performed by the independent theatre collective Soso Daughters and staged by currently imprisoned theatre director Zhenya Berkovich.

Olga Nikolaeva, PhD, is an independent researcher and specialist in feminist and political scenography. She is also a substitute lecturer in Design/Visual Communication and Sustainability at Linnaeus University, Sweden. Her research interests lie in the sphere of holistic scenography with focus on materiality, agency, affect, and meaning-making. She is also working on application of scenography to interventional protests. Her recent publications focus scenography of trauma in works of women theatre makers in the contemporary Russian theatre and scenographic reading of interventional protests.