why we bow - autothesis

Abstract

I propose this work as my autothesis: a thesis of a subjective self, reckoning with who I am and from where I come. What I wish to address is the importance of self-consciousness in relation to knowledge and power in the highly political and public realm of theatre and theatre leadership. I want to not only argue but put into practice in this writing, awareness and accountability of self as fundamental to releasing theatre’s full potential as a means to reframe social justice and make the world a better place. I present here now, in this thesis, as a person, director and a leader, to self-actualize and assert myself. I will do that with the integrity of the feminist epistemology of stand-point theory and with the playful and political mode of autotheory. Both of these theories demand of me that I be present, positioned and accounted for throughout my process of theorizing. They demand self-reflection and self-awareness as opposed to false universals or illusions of objectivity, to enable further integrity and legitimacy to my theory and my work. And that in fact summarizes one of the main arguments I want to make. I strongly believe that in order to be fully deserving of a mandate to create or curate meaning on stage for a public audience where I reckon with society and the world, I must first reckon with myself. In the mode of autotheory, I will throughout this work cite the people in my life as much as the people in my books, weaving them into my self-theorizing. Among them are bell hooks, Brené Brown, my parents, Judith Butler, my friends and my teachers, Kenneth Foster, Jacques Rancière, my therapist, Jack Halberstam, Alok Vaid Menon, my collaborators, Jill Dolan and Peggy Phelan. In the first chapter, How the Light Gets In, I will account for my intersectional identity and origins, my socio-economic background, my wounding, my queerness and my wrestling with it as a projected identity on other peoples’ terms. I’ll think through these threads of myself personally, politically, spiritually and socially, and ultimately, in relation to theatre and leadership. In the second chapter I will profess my two core Values: Love and Integrity. Interrogating myself into identifying my north star, is not only empowering as a self-made standard to measure success on my own terms. It is also fundamental to living up to the accountability I feel is inherent to leading people and working in a field where meaning and sense are made. Next, I will move on to a chapter dedicated to case studies, where I research how my core values, and my lived experience that illuminates them, shows up in my leadership role as a director. I will firstly account for the Stertabenda Manifesto - my company in Iceland. I will provide notes and glossary of examples to illuminate what might not be transparent to an outside eye. Then I will break the form of the unified text and list my Directors Notes on Vulnerability - the feeling, phenomenon and intricate force of human connection. This written auto-thesis is also companion to my artistic MA thesis: Neptune, which premiered in February 2023 at Teak. To conclude the chapter on case studies of leadership in directing, I will discuss how I practiced showing up in alignment with my core values in a very challenging process. I will explain what leadership and communication tools I applied and how they served and where they might have cracked. I will conclude with my key learnings from the creative process. They take the form of inquiries rather than elixirs that I take with me. In the final chapter I will shed a light on my artistic leadership in an institutional setting. From 2020-22 I was artistic director of two spaces at the National Theatre of Iceland (NTI), both were reserved for alternative programming and reaching new audiences. I will expound how I showed up in alignment with my values for this very challenging, humbling and empowering task. Lastly, I will break form again. By the standards of Nonviolent communication guidelines passed on to me by my mentor Rodolfo García Vázquez, I will I imagine myself having a conversation with the institution. Through this autothesis and its very personal subjectivity, I do not know if I will provide any solid theories or solutions. I am not a finite self. And this is not a finite thesis. I am here to answer a call to courage, to be self-aware in leading from my heart instead of my hurt. In the end, the light comes on. As we bow in recognition of the people of the public who came together to make sense of things with us, our heart ascends the brain.