Ett rotsystem på spåren. Om scenkonst och kön

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show how a key observation, made in an advanced institute for training actors, is effected by gender discourses. These discourses interact with a master-apprentice tradition developed as a central part of the institute’s artistic-pedagogical training program. Another tradition was also at play as an important pedagogical inspiration and discursive formation: a matrilinear trainingprogram related to the voice and the body. This hierarchical master-apprentice-tradition was not only an accepted condition, but also a power-contra-power relation in the Foucauldian sense. In this powerplay of submission and resistance specific metaphors and symbols related to the body was crucial. These bodyrelated metaphors and symbols are shown to act subconsciously as part of a system of so called ”rootmetaphors”. By bringing together an analytic approach informed by Foucault’s view on power, as well as one informed by psychoanalysis, this gendered ”rootsystem” emerged. A key symbol is the metaphor of metaphors in psychoanalysis: the phallus. The complex role of the phallus was made clear when observing a physical exercise whose aim was to activate and raise the students consciouness of the voice’s soundingboard. Allusions to classical theatrical ideals, the dubious status of male students in acting in the cultural hegemony in society at large, as well as the confusion and bodily sensations this exercise caused, activated the meaning of the phallus and in extension the penis. One, in our culture natural symbol or rootmetaphor, the phallus, came more or less unconsciously to the rescue of these men. Ironically, the need of male dominance was reinforced in an environment which not only is endowed with a hierarchical male tradition, but also with values and connotations related to the feminine: the artistic and personal, intuition and the desire to perform and act. The phallus as the metaphor of metaphors seemed to work selffulfillingly, interacting with internalized discourses on gender.