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This thesis is a study of race and ethnicity in culture and the arts. It discusses whiteness and racism in ballet and addresses a gap in the literature for both disciplines Ballet and Race and Ethnic Studies. Even if ballet is a privileged art form that for centuries has served statecraft, survived revolutions, and political instability the problem of race in ballet is jeopardizing its validity and acceptance in the contemporary world. I ask if racism in ballet is more than behaviors, if it designates ideology, or if it is a matter of visuality and aesthetics. I do this to provide insight into how race is projected in and through the art form in question. The need to transcend the scope of a single discipline brought me to adopt interdisciplinary research to analyze ballet right at the intersection with crossing perspectives linked to the body, aesthetics, performance, privilege, race, and gender. The thesis shows that ballet gives material expression to whiteness as ideology and is compliant with an exclusive approach to an idea of the body and beauty that presupposes racist attitudes and behaviors. At the institutional level, the experience of ballet is whiteness -unnamed, unmarked, universal. But for those bodies outside the constructs of whiteness, the experience is marked by racism and objective barriers. The study informs that an exclusive discourse of the body, often disguised as aesthetic discourse, translates into limited access to ballet education, body shaming, harassment, and fewer job opportunities. However, ballet is an art form, it is more than whiteness or racism. It creates beauty in the body of the dancer which is both instrument and object of art. Ballet dancers invest their lives learning and performing an art form that some other people cherish, but how come a space of whiteness and racism is perceived as beautiful? The thesis elucidates the importance of this reflection also.

This Master thesis is about Western circus performance styles. It is the aim to describe, compare, and contextualise traits and tendencies of early Western circus performances (EWCP) and contemporary Western circus performances (CWCP) through academic terms. The investigation is centred around the thesis that CWCP have revitalized a suffering and almost dying art form called 'circus' – causing it to reach a new level of social and artistic acceptability in a postmodern world – mainly through the introduction of a significant stylistic feature: Identification. The feeling of a spectator's close emotional association with the action taking place onstage. This feature stands in opposition to the acrobatic skills exposed, and through this implementation, the author therefore claims an exposition of contrasts to occur onstage: The foreign and mysterious combined with the familiar and 'real'. The exposition of superior and seemingly unobtainable physical abilites combined with the exposition of human fragility, flawedness, and inferiority. The spectators' passive observance in awe of an artist flying high and far away combined with spectators' active engagement with an artist staring them closely into the eyes on the ground. The imaginative combined with relatable everyday-like images. Establishing a common ground between artist and audience while at the same time distorting it.  According to the author, the feature of identification has been absent in stylistic expositions of EWCP. This absence is argued to create dichotomous gaps, rather than ties, between sender and receiver as well as between performed images and images linked to 'reality'. The author suggests that these modes were crucial causes of EWCP' decrease in popularity due to the arrival of postmodernism, and that the increasing popularity of CWCP in the later 20th century was due to the elimination of these gaps. The research is done by interweaving 1) historical contextualizations and comparative studies between EWCP and CWCP, 2) discussions of selected circus scholars' literature about circus performances' stylistic developments, 3) the author's embodied experiences with circus performances (ie. as an acrobat in the company Cirque du Soleil), and 4) stylistic analyses of tropes and patterns in selected EWCP and CWCP. Conclusions are reached through the author's constructions of coherence between these aspects. Paula Saukko's eclectic research model has been applied in order to integrate various methodologies. The analyses are based on dance scholar Susan Foster's theory about modes of representations as well as selected rhetorical terms related to stylistics. It is a core aim of this Master thesis to provide studies of circus performances' stylistic executions with more clarifying and adequate terminologies.

Intangible Cultural Heritage is a dynamic presentation of the local community’s cultural authenticity and identity (UNESCO, 2003), differentiating it from other tourist destinations. Authenticity concerns arise in modern tourism studies (MacCannell, 1973), especially in heritage studies with a significant trend on safeguarding the "living culture" after 2003. However, there is little agreement on the notion of authenticity in tourism and a lack of information on how intangible cultural heritage practitioners perceive heritage authenticity, who plays an essential role in transmitting along to future generations the immaterial heritage effectively (Lenzerini, 2011). Furthermore, the dominant tourism settings in both academia and industry have overlooked the voices of local people and heritage practitioners for a long time. Through the lens of Swedish folk dancers in the Skansen Museum, this research here explores how practitioners interpret heritage authenticity during tourism activities and further involves the discussion of the authenticity issues in heritage tourism, the cultural identity of ICH practitioners, and the connotation of authenticity in the field of ICH by using Skansens Folkdanslag as a representative case study. This research is expected to contribute to the understanding of authenticity from the practitioners' perspective and the preservation of intangible cultural heritage during tourism activities.

Since there is very little scientific research about directing children and foremost about directingchildren in professional productions, like Stockholm stadsteater, was my purpose with this bacheloressay to find work methods that directors use when they work with child actors in professionalproductions. With this bachelor essay I wanted to give practitioners in the world of theater tools forhow to work with children in professional theater, as well as increase the interest for furtherresearch in this subject. To accomplish this purpose I have gathered material from the production of Billy Elliot at MalmöOpera, made observations of the same production at Stockholms stadsteater and interviewed thedirector of the production, Ronny Danielsson and director and children ambassador Suzanne Osten.The study is made from a perspective of the post modern child and also from a so called child perspective on the art of directing and working with children in theater. My conclusions from my studies are that when working as a director with child actors you need tothink about motivation and stimulating the children in their development, and support them in theirwork with analyzing the play, as well as give them tools to help them find their emotionalconnection. If the children loose their interest in acting the director need to be there to give thechildren new challenges. It is important to give positive feedback and use a language that thechildren understand and use body language and image work to clarify the directions as well asletting the children have some time for rest and play. This is only one example of how directors work with child actors in professional productions. Frommy interviews, observations and the previous research that I have studied, have I discovered thatdirectors sometimes are in agreement and sometimes not. To further answer my questions moreresearch into the director’s way of working with children would be needed. I therefor hope that Ithrough this essay have contributed with increasing the interest of further research into this subject.

In the spring of 2023, Kungliga Operan in Stockholm, Sweden premiered their production of Stephen Sondheim's famous musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. This study aims to analyze this production in regards to Mattias Fhyr's definition of the Gothic. It analyzes what gothic signs and themes are recognizable in the Kungliga Operan production of the musical and how they manifest on stage. The study applies the qualitative method of performance analysis, which uses a combination of semiotics and hermeneutics to analyze live performances. Semiotics is also used as the theoretical foundation of this essay. Fhyr's definition specifies that a gothic text depicts subjective worlds, that lack higher order and is characterized by an atmosphere of decay, destruction, and irresolvability, and that it contains labyrinthine qualities. Earlier research also shows that the Gothic can be found in almost all media, including theater. This study illustrates how this performance of Sweeney Todd contains and expresses the above mentioned themes. It also discusses the gothic genre's relationship with opera and comedy and how they are relevant in the performance. It explores the characters monstrous depictions, and examines different familial relations and themes in the musical, characteristic of the gothic genre. The study concludes that the Gothic can be found in the musical's set design and fictional locations, in the mood and atmosphere mostly created by the score, in the characters and their actions, as well as in the story itself.

”Blessed be those without pretense”: A hermeneutic-semiotic analysis of the institutionally produced storytelling theatre of Västerbotten is a bachelor thesis in Performance Studies. The study aims to examine and define the aesthetic and commonly occurring themes of the institutionally produced storytelling theatre of Västerbotten, and to discuss the representation of the citizens of Västerbotten on stage, which ideals and characteristics are desirable and which are not. The theoretical framework of this study is supported by ethnological and sociological theories about storytelling and the method used is performance analysis based on semiotics and hermeneutics. Seven performances between the years 1998-2021 are deconstructed and analyzed. The results show several reoccurring and common features of the storytelling theatre of Västerbotten, such as the shifting between the storyteller's present moment and the time period of the story, the important role music plays in the telling of the story and the common setting of the farming societies of the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. Other reoccurring themes are those of Christianity, socialism, food, farm animals, and squalor. The ideal characteristics identified were honesty, integrity, and a good work ethic. There is an ambition for cultural preservation present within the genre and a lack of representation of minorities.

Inom det dramapedagogiska fältet är området skapande för skapandets egen skull inte så framträdande i forskningen. Det finns mer forskning kring barn och elever - och drama - jämfört med forskning som beskriver vuxnas deltagande. Undersökningen har som syfte att skapa förståelse för hur vuxna deltagare kan uppleva en kurs i improvisationsteater. Undersökningen har narrativ metod och deltagarna har intervjuats och data samlats in genom deltagarnas skriftliga berättelser. Frågorna som ställts är Vad är improvisationsteater?, Vad händer med dig på improvisationsteatern? och Vilken betydelse kan kursen i improvisationsteater ha för dig i ditt liv i övrigt? Undersökningen är fenomenologisk och hermeneutisk vilket betyder att det är  själva essensen av improvisationsteater som är central - vad kan improvisationsteater vara? Vilken betydelse har improvisationsteatern för deltagarna? Undersökningen är praxisnära och det empiriska materialet får stort utrymme. Kursen beskrivs som en egen verklighet, en oas - där vad som helst kan hända. Deltagarna får vara spontana och agera utan manus - och ett exempel på ett förlopp är ”från en dyster begravningsscen, till en familjemiddag och så kommer plötsligt kungen in och domderar”. Forskningsresultatet visar på en spretig, mångfacetterad - eller rik - bild när det gäller improvisationsteaterns betydelse för deltagarna. Deltagarna tillskriver kursen i improvisationsteater att den är alltifrån kul och en roligt lek till att den bidrar till ”modet att vara som jag är”, att ”släppa oro och stress” eller ”stå ut med vardagen”.

Studiens övergripande syfte är att undersöka förutsättningarna för ämnet teater/drama inom kulturskolan. Till grund för uppsatsen ligger tre fokusgruppsamtal med lärare i teater/drama i kulturskolan i en svensk stad samt ett stödjande dokument för kulturskolorna i samma stad och ett styrdokument för Norges kulturskola. Allt material har bearbetats och granskats utifrån en socialkonstruktivistisk ansats genom diskursanalytiska glasögon.  Informanterna är eniga om att ämnet teater/drama i kulturskolan i Staden inte betraktas som en konstform, utan huvudsakligen som verktyg och metod. De beskriver en verksamhet som har knappa resurser att nå konstnärlig höjd och beskriver ett ämne som på grund av okunskap kring praktikens tidskrävande processer är marginaliserat i kulturskolans verksamhet. Det framgår att ämnet är i stort behov av att formuleras verbalt. Det tycks nödvändigt att skapa en gemensam terminologi för att möjliggöra en konstruktiv kommunikation mellan lärare i teater/drama och chefer i syfte att utveckla en hållbar verksamhet.

Things, spaces and people collaborate in order to create an immersive experience. This project investigates this collaboration in order to combine them for an embodied way of tell and perceive stories.  Can a immersive experience help to close the gap between information and the person, the event and the story? In the following essay I am going to analyze the components that are part of the experience. I am interested in the connection between perception, memory, atmosphere and objects. Inquire how they are related and what they represent in order to tell stories with them. I try to question the way we perceive and expand the function of telling and receiving stories to the whole body and everything around us. With these new questions, create my project – Johan’s Room – and experiment with them, trying to connect the audience with the story.