Blaue Frau
The feminist theater company Blaue Frau consists of actresses Joanna Wingren and Sonja Ahlfors. The company was founded in 2005 and has for over 15 years created touching, questioning and sometimes provocative art. Blaue Frau is one of few professional performing groups working within outspoken feminst art and the group has continuously challenged the Finnish-Swedish art field with it´s cross-border performances.
Blaue Frau is working norm critically and non-hierarchically and strives to critically examine and develop working methods according to these frames. The focus always lies on the creative process rather than on the result. Blaue Frau wants to reformulate and renew the theater both in terms of form and content and the group wants to challenge the relationship between audience and performer. Blaue Frau wants to create theater that is modern and accurate, rather than reproducing old structures and narratives.
Blaue Frau usually collaborates with a variety of artists and performers from all over the Nordic region and has so far done almost 30 productions, all of them world premieres. Among the performances one could mention: Jag är din flickvän nu (2008-2011, in collaboration with Teater Viirus), based on Nina Hemmingsson’s and Liv Strömquist’s cartoons; Svinalängorna (2009-2010, in collaboration with Wasa Teater, Riksteatern and Uusiteatteri), based on Susanna Alakoski’s novel with the same name; Wall to Wall (2012) which received the 2012 Antonia prize; Blaue Frau Do Paul Auster (2013-2014) based on Paul Auster’s City of Glass; Harlequin (2019, in collaboration with ÖFA-collective and LOSTI collective) which received the 2019 Antonia prize; and THE TENT (2020), an interactive performance where two performers meet one visitor at a time.
Since 2012 Blaue Frau has worked more towards performance art and installation, but the group still calls their art “theater performances” – even if Blaue Frau’s art doesn’t look anything like traditional theater pieces.
In addition to performance art Blaue Frau has realized the festival Pop Up Art House (2013-2014), facilitated and organized the Nordic workshops series Blaue Frau workshops (2015-2018), released the book Någon hatar oss igen (Schildts & Söderströms, 2017), produced the podcast Taxen och Terriern (2005-) and recorded the tv-series Micke & Steffe show (Five Corners Production & Yle 2020-).
Photo
Photo in the slider by Jaakko Pietiläinen
Main picture by Liina Aalto-Setälä
Photos in the gallery by Liina Aalto-Setälä
