Nova Pošta (Mladinsko Theatre and Maska Ljubljana), City of Women, premiere December 2022
Following in the footsteps of the popular series on Netflix, theatre is starting to address the topic of sex education. This has taken different forms – Mamoru Iriguchi’s Sex Education Xplorers (S.E.X.) and Sex Education at Teatr Współczesny in Szczecin, Poland, are just two examples. Now Slovenian artists have followed suit.
Even in countries that offer sex education in a school context, it often contains only minimal information, with a focus on functionality, and is rarely sufficient to help teenagers feel comfortable and safe exploring their sexuality. It was in response to these educational gaps in Slovenia that the performance project Sex Education II was created.
The show takes viewers on a journey through the bodies, mind, and stories of women. Nova Pošta, a space created by Maska and the Mladinsko Theatre, serves as a space for young creators to experiment. Across five different sections, a group of freelance artists from Slovenia and Croatia: Lina Akif, Sendi Bakotić, Nika Rozman, Vanda Velagić, Tea Vidmar, Barbara Kapelj, Tijana Todorović, and director Tjaša Črnigoj, address various issues related to female sexual pleasure, which are often overlooked in school sex education programs as well as in the public sphere.
The performances arose from the needs and interests of the creators. Črnigoj,had previously developed her project under the name Sex Education, but it was only through collaboration with the performers within the Nova Pošta space that the project evolved and gained popularity. The premiere of the first phase of the second part of the project took place in December 2022, but the creative process lasted over a year and resulted in the creation of additional parts that address topics often ignored in Slovenia.
The project consists of five lecture performance-style presentations. This type of theatre has roots in the 60s, and is a hybrid of lecture, conceptual, and performative elements, primarily serving an educational purpose. For a performance whose title includes the word “education,” this mode of theatre seems is the best way not only formally but conceptually, to present the material. Sexual education is usually associated with boring lectures in school, whereas in theatre, it can be interesting, fun, candid, and, as a consequence, much more educational.
The five parts are: Diagnosis, Consentire, Ability, Play, and Fight. Each part addresses a different theme and presents a different type of lecture performance. The pieces can be watched individually or across one day, as I did. They start with an introduction about their own school experiences and their desire to create something together, a performance by women for women (and anyone else who is interested). During this introduction, they give us a brief insight into what we will hear in the subsequent parts. They conclude their introduction with words that are also included in the final part of Sex Education II – Fight: “this is a story about a country, this is a story about community, this is a story about courage, this is a story about love, this is a story about violence, this is a story about protection, this is a story about the body of an unknown young woman”
Each of the performances has a different aesthetic and acting style, and is performed in a different space. The creators strive to tailor the style to the stories being told and the information contained within them, ensuring that their meaning is conveyed to the audience as effectively as possible. Therefore, one section is illustrated by drawings, another takes the form of a museum of objects, and yet another explores the academic process of archival research. The performances are site-responsive, taking place in various parts of the Nova Pošta building. Sometimes you have to walk through dark rooms mimicking the interior of genital organs, sometimes we are taken outside, or down into the building’s underground to “witness” an illegal abortion. The project fully utilized the building, bringing life to each of its spaces, allowing the audience to explore different rooms that once belonged to the post office.
Sex Education II: Diagnosis
The first part, titled Diagnosis, focuses on gynaecological issues, specifically a condition called vaginismus. The audience is invited to enter the space where the performance takes place, through an area representing the pelvic floor muscles – a dark room that needs to be illuminated via the flashlight on our phones. Upon entering the small room where the performance unfolds, we see actress Nika Rozman pouring lubricant onto the floor, while we hear interviews conducted by the creators with women who have struggled with this condition, sharing their experiences of discovering and coping with it.
During the interview, we learn about the problems within the healthcare system in Slovenia and how few sexological specialists there are in this field. At one point, one of the women mentions that her gynaecologist recommended more lubricant, which, of course, did not yield results. The actress then smears the spilled lubricant on the floor and begins her performance. She attempts to perform complex dance positions, slipping and sliding on it, with the end result being tragic because the slippery surface prevents her from making elegant, precise dance movements, leading to constant falls. This literal depiction of the struggle with lubricant that brings no results makes the audience realize how difficult it is for women to achieve sexual pleasure. In the later part of the performance, the audience learns that 40% of women experience pain during penetration. This part addresses society’s silence on the topic of sex and the complexity of female anatomy and psychology.
The next part of Sex Education II is Consentire, focusing on consent to sex and women’s sense of safety in the sexual sphere. The creators led us to another room in Nova Pošta, where the audience could sit in a circle and watch as one of the performers drew on the wall. Posters and slogans on the topic of consent similar to those in schools were arranged around the room. The audience was invited to explore the room, read private stories of women, scan QR codes for additional information, and listen to recordings of women who explored the boundaries of violation, sexual communication, and consent. During one of the recordings, performer Nina Rozman scattered soil in the middle of the room and performed various sexual positions, leaving traces in the soil. Finally, she scattered seeds in them, forming the word “Consentire”. This could be a reference to feeling of dirtiness connected with experiences related to sexual abuse. Another interpretation may be that the soil symbolizes cleansing from bad experiences, enabling the planting of new habits. While the stories we hear are personal experiences, they have a universal resonance, echoing the experiences of most women in a patriarchal world.
The third part, Ability, focuses another under-discussed topic – the sex lives of women with disabilities. This time, the performance takes place in a conventional theatre space. However, before the start, the director informs the audience that the space is called the “dark room,” a room where photos are developed. In the performance, actress Lina Akif slowly “develops” the stories of several women. The performance is minimalist, delicate, and honest. The performer acts as a mediator between the women who share their stories and the audience. She sequentially presents the interview testimony of women with various physical disabilities as they talk about their romantic and sexual lives, which are rich and as varied as they are. The women have disabilities which they were born or acquired through accident; one uses a wheelchair following a spinal injury, one was born with no arms. For some this is no barrier to them dating on Tinder, masturbating, or having a passionate marriage, though some also talk about having to regain or acquire sexual confidence and trust in their bodies. To visualize these stories, the creators project images using old-fashioned projectors, under which Akif inserts various pictures depicting scenes from the interviewees’ lives.
Sex Education II: Play
The next section, Play, is also led by Lina Akif, though her character and acting style has changed entirely– she now embodies a lusty French society lady, in a white wig and a ruffled dress, as she recounts stories of women’s kinks and fetishes. Before this section begins, several costumed women, one dressed as a fox, one naked except for a fur coat, ride bicycles around the Mladinsko theater building and lead us to Nova Pošta, reframed as a house of pleasure. In a shipping container in front of the Nova Pošta building, a space has been filled with plants with a mannequin dressed in shibari ropes – a Japanese technique used for sexual pleasure. The next room contains an erotic costume hanging on the wall and a desk full of objects related to BDSM (bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, and masochism) practices, which are still often stigmatized. Once again we hear interviews conducted with people from Slovenia who belong to the relevant community. Akif delivers all this with a stream of constant jokes and an immense openness and directness that counters any potential sense of shame or embarrassment in the audience. Her positive and humorous monologues are, however, intertwined with content about a woman being ashamed to get tested for HIV because of what doctors might think, or being afraid that the community in her city will recognize her at costume sex parties. But the section ends on a note of positivity, because everyone has the right to pleasure.
In the final part of the project titled Fight, the issue of women’s reproductive rights is presented. Two actresses from Croatia, Sendi Bakotić and Vanda Velagić, lead the audience through various phases of their research on abortion rights in Yugoslavia in an analytical and academic, but also artistic manner. Such an approach, with many dry facts and history in telling about such an still emotionally issue, is another strong creative decision, form once again matching content. The first scene begins outside, where the actresses explain their background and the bilingual nature of the performance, informing us that in 1940 abortion was illegal in Yugoslavia. Then they lead the audience to the basement, an underground room, where one of the actresses, dressed in a white old-fashioned dress, mixes various herbs, as she gives us a recipe for a homemade abortion. The mixture is displayed on one of the basement walls by a projector. Among various recipes, the phrase “and if it doesn’t work” is repeated. Other methods are presented to us. The final one involves a hanger, which causes blood to appear on the projection.
Sex Education II: Fight
The next scene takes place outside again, where the story of women in a male communist world is told, where they had to fight for voting rights. After this scene, to the rhythm of the Yugoslavian love song called Jer ljubav to je miris belog cveca, the actresses lead the audience to a warehouse space. There, in this working-class space, dressed in working-class attire that reflects the period, they lead us through the history of how women gained rights in a communist state. They focus on the biographies of Vida Tomšič and Dr. Franco Novak-Luka, originally from Slovenia, who were the first to introduce elements of sexual education into the state and who fought for women’s rights and access to contraception and abortion. The creators found sources in many Slovenian archives and institutions, but it was not an easy task, as no one in Slovenia, despite the constitutional provision regarding abortion, is interested in or cultivates this part of history. It’s a pity because Slovenia can be proud of the existence of a hidden maternity hospital made by Novak during WWII. Additionally, it was in Slovenia that the first female contraception – the diaphragm – was produced, which was distributed throughout Yugoslavia. The archival research was complemented by statements from the Tomšič and Novak’s daughter and the actresses’ grandmothers, who recount how abortion and contraception looked in those times. Fight concludes by inviting the audience to another room where posters related to the fight for women’s rights in Yugoslavia hang, paying tribute to all those who fought for them before us.
Despite the project consisting of five separate performances stylistically different from each other, it forms a cohesive whole. Each section espoused education through dialogue. The interviews conducted with individuals from Slovenia give each part an intimate, sincerity, making the conveyed knowledge non-didactic while also avoiding putting the creators in the role of higher authorities. The result is a universal performance; one that can reach every woman – and man – of every age, and teach them something new about female pleasure. We are even given diplomas at the end, as we complete our process of education.
Creators: Tjaša Črnigoj, Sendi Bakotić, Vanda Velagić, Tijana Todorović, Lene Lekše
For further information, visit: Mladinsko.com
Karolina Bugajak is a theater critic from Poland, currently living in Ljubljana. She studied culture and contemporary art at the University of Lodz. The title of her master's thesis was "Theatricality and Exaggeration. Camp aesthetics as a strategy for creating new identities in the plays of Grzegorz Jaremko". Her main theatrical interests include topics such as institutional criticism, the representation of marginalized groups in plays, and most recently the theater of the former Yugoslav states.
