Sex Education II

Sex Education II demonstrates the importance of a conceptual idea that conceives a certain problem (and its variations) as an ongoing series of events or as a permanent performing platform that ‘persists in persistence’, not simply for the sake of the persistence alone but because it will be a long time before the material to explore the power of patriarchal control over (historical and contemporary) female bodies runs out. The cycle of lecture-performances Sex Education II has, without a doubt, changed the view of the theatre representation of female sexuality and the historicization of the female body, which cannot be easily found in the productions of other repertoire theatres in Slovenia. Sex Education II has thus realised at least two valuable and important gestures: one is therapeutical, the other, educational. Although, for example, a certain part of the audience might already be acquainted with the documentary materials about the sexual practices explored, this doesn’t reduce the “therapeutic” effect that such public representation can have on an individual when they attend an event that is accessible to the public, takes place within a certain community and is entered into the record of the language of the public space or theatre. At the same time, such events also serve as necessary reminders in connection with self-obviousness of the rights acquired that we use carelessly without really being aware of their evolutional processes.

What needs to be emphasised here is that the authors carried out not only important research but also production work because this is an extensive two-year project, whose integral version is six hours long (with two short and one longer intervals). Additionally, it is equally important to emphasise that every single space at The New Post Office has been utilised so that Sex Education II as well as its audience are constantly in motion. The piece itself includes several educational accents […] however, it is never dry and didactic, but rather a series of documentary presentations that testify about how very much sexuality is a spectrum in which there are no rules, and about how all our sexual practices are limited by different societal forces. From vaginismus to consent to the sexuality of people with disabilities through kink and fetishes to the regulation of abortion in Yugoslavia, Sex Education II fills in the blind spot of our society, which instead of an inclusive, informative and empathetic story about sexuality, only offers a vast emptiness. […] The performative elements of the entire cycle are minimal and well thought out, their individual aspects subtly travel through all five parts that can function independently, but when we add them up they get added value because of synergy. From simply sliding on lubricant, dripping on the dance floor, or unloading and preparing 50 litres of gardening soil over a clothesline, full of sheets or bloody knickers, to patches of moss or creepers positioned throughout the space and the already mentioned overhead projectors which, just like the voice of one of the performers, pop up sporadically and, in addition to building a specific atmosphere, remind us that all the stories we’re witnessing, albeit particular, are in fact indelibly connected. What connects them is the silence with which such narratives have been covered with until now, their invisibility in public space and consequently a stigma – stigma and silence that Sex Education II removes in a beautiful way and offers us, instead, a possibility to learn, recognise, open, connect in all its broadness of the female sexual experience.

A rainy afternoon in the courtyard of The New Post Office, the space of the Mladinsko Theatre and Maska Institute in Ljubljana. The audience has gathered and is waiting for the beginning of Sex Education II, the marathon of five lecture-performances about female sexual pleasure, which the two institutions produced, together with the City of Women. In different parts of the yard, there are yellow signs, not unlike traffic signs, with names and descriptions, so that each performing space gets a particular associative name. […] To begin with, the yard of The New Post Office is a School playground where the female team of authors wishes us a welcome […]. They explain why the first stop on this hours-long happening is a schoolyard – a schoolyard was their starting point for the project. In a school, the authors met, talked, shared personal experiences and then researched what female pleasure means for each one of them. Each lecture also includes documentary recordings of interviews the authors conducted with experts in the field, and with the women who were – congruent with the theme of the performances – willing to speak about their experiences. […] The entire series of lectures shows the effort of the authors to succinctly and effectively introduce the woman question to the audience, and the selected topics are incredibly precious for the social tableau in which we currently find ourselves. True, this Sex Education has II in its title, but for some, it undoubtedly meant their first encounter with these important topics and questions.