Theatre
Jonathan Ibsen and Fredrik Petrov are many things to each other: lovers, roommates, best friends, psychologists, producers and colleagues. It becomes art, and together they set up “Panser” at Black Box.
The performance “Panser”, which premieres at Black Box on Friday 3 May, is a gathering and a collision between four queer individuals – a work that attacks the heterosexual, markedly exemplary man and how he delimits the space for queers.
The performance challenges the aesthetics of the heterosexual male ideal and the associated social culture, and speculates on a reality where queers are not subject to the alienating and restrictive logic that accompanies this ideal.
The actors on stage create a space on their own terms, closer to a simmering pressure where shame and morality are peeled away. Can those with this temperament confront the spectators with their own expectations of the performers’ gendered bodies?
Immodest queerness
When asked by the promoters at Black Box, about how they want to introduce themselves to the public, the duo replies that they hardly know themselves, but that “in that search it has strangely become natural to create art.”
They mainly work in and with their own artistry, where Fredrik finds himself interested in using absurdity and satire to convey complex themes, while Jonathan goes deep into the contemporary body and its interaction with today’s social norms.
Working together as a duo involves many different markers:
“We are many things to each other, lovers, roommates, best friends, psychologists, producers, colleagues, and often when we work, all of this gets tangled up. It can get muddy, but it really is also a strength,” the press release says.
The project, or the performance, would go in a direction neither of them had foreseen: “Our settlement with this ideal is now more about how our internal care, respect and love for each other can convey explicit, immodest queerness.”
“Panzer”, 3-5. May, Black Box, Marstrandgata 8, Oslo.
Tags: Attacks heterosexual markedly exemplary man
