Scenekunstens (for)handlingsrom etter 22. juli

In this article I discuss theatre’s scope of action after the 2011 terror attacks in Norway (“22. July”), with an emphasis on independent theatre, aesthetic heteronomy and the public sphere. A theatre manager’s (Jon Refsdal Moe) retrospect account of and reflections upon a case of self-censoring is the starting point for my (re-)examination of the arguments and dynamics concerning some of the most prominent contentious 22. July performances. I discuss how the controversies can be understood and dealt with, and how they are connected to theatre’s scope of action and place in society today. In my argument, I differentiate between the public sphere as an arena for discussion and debate (which theatre, as an institution, more or less has lost its impact on), and the public, conceived as an imagined community (which theatre still is strongly connected to, as assigned a publics’ symbolic space). I argue that the controversies about the 22. July performances, as well as the usage of marginal spaces, have to be understood as part of a far-reaching cultural dynamics after the terror attacks, concerning not only the arts, but numerous sectors of society, and that the performances aesthetic heteronomy requires a work- and context specific approach.